


Lost in the Dark

by writingfromdarkplaces



Series: Desertion Alternate Universe [1]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Denial, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7587730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee went missing on the anniversary of his brother's death.</p><p>In time, most people accepted that he was dead.</p><p>Truthfully, he just wished he was, and that was before the worlds ended and a certain battlestar found him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I have thousands of AUs when it comes to this show. All the possibilities and what ifs, and that need to fix what canon screwed up so badly...
> 
> This is more of an idea that nagged at me, and it has some similarities to the idea in Barely Remembered Tune, but they're not related. I'm even willing to break rules (handwaving instead of explaining how different the world would be if Lee wasn't where he was through the mini and also... not trying for a one-shot this time.)

* * *

“And that,” Lee said, lifting the bottle again, “is everything that happened in the last year. Kind of pathetic when you think about it, but then... it still doesn't feel like life should keep going, does it? I keep thinking time should have stopped when we lost you, but it hasn't. It's just... going on and on and...”

He stopped, grabbing hold of Zak's headstone and trying to stay upright. He didn't remember standing—he thought he'd sat down for his long overdue chat with his brother, but he must have gotten up again somewhere in the middle of his speech. Maybe when he went off on their father. Again.

Or their mother.

He should have known her sobriety wouldn't last past the funeral. She'd said she was sober when she called him last, but he knew better. He knew her voice, and he knew she'd been drinking. Gods, he hated it. He hated her.

Almost as much as he hated his father.

Then again... His mother's call had left him open to distraction and had prompted his CAG to put him on leave for the anniversary, so he supposed in a way he owed her.

“Gods, Zak, why?” Lee asked, sitting back down again. “Was it me? Did I not... I didn't—I shouldn't have done it. If I hadn't chosen to fly, you wouldn't have thought you had to do it, too. Maybe if I'd chosen a different path, then he wouldn't have been able to use that damned line about Viper pilots on you... And you'd still be alive.”

Zak's gravestone didn't answer, and Lee put a hand to his head before raising the bottle again. Frak. It was empty.

“Guess that's a sign, right? Time to head back to the hotel,” Lee said, pushing himself up again. It had taken him a couple bottles to convince himself to go to the cemetery, and he'd polished off a couple more while he was talking to his brother. It was starting to hit him.

Then again, if he could take the g-forces of a Viper, he could take a little alcohol. He started toward the parking lot. He shouldn't drive, but he did have a wallet in the car, maybe, that he could use to pay for a cab ride back to the room he'd taken for his leave.

He made it to the car, leaning over the window and trying to decide if he'd brought another bottle or not, giving some thought to the idea of just sleeping it off in the backseat—who the frak was going to care if he did? It might be a military burial ground, but he hadn't been chased off by a guard yet and he'd been here for hours. He was off-duty, no one would be looking for him for a few days, especially since he hadn't told his mother he'd be planetside and his father...

No, no one would be looking for him.

“Apollo.”

* * *

“Did you hear?” One of the rookie pilots asked, leaning over to gossip with his friends. “The commander's son went AWOL.”

Kara stilled mid-bet, not dropping her cubit into the pot as she'd been about to. She swallowed, trying to find words as she shook her head.

Helo found them for her, and he might just have kicked one of the others under the table, too, from the look that kid's face. “Zak Adama is dead.”

There it was, the kick to the gut she knew was coming but still couldn't brace herself for anyway. She'd tried, but it never got easier. Zak was gone. It was her fault. She'd passed him, and he'd died. She would never forgive herself for it.

“Not him. The other one. Apollo.”

“The frak you say,” Kara's words came out faster than her brain could switch gears. She was still half-caught in the loss of Zak again while her brain was screaming at her that something was wrong, just as wrong as that day when Zak's bird went down. “Never.”

Helo nodded. “I mean, I don't know the guy that well, just reputation and all, but he's got one hell of one—he'd never do that.”

“I know Lee,” Kara said, putting down her cards and getting up from the table. “He wouldn't go AWOL. Abandoning his duty is not—Lee is just not frakking wired that way. It didn't happen, so stow it now. If I hear one more word about this, I will hunt you down and make sure you never say another word again _period,_ is that understood?”

The other pilot nodded, frightened by her fury, and she left the rec room, needing to get her head together and get this whole frakking mess out of her system. She wanted to say that it wasn't anything, that it had to be wrong just because Lee would never do that, but she hadn't seen Lee since the funeral. That alone made her start to doubt, just like she had when Zak died.

She ran all the way to the CIC, and when she saw the commander wasn't there, she almost lost her lunch, turning to run again. She went straight for his quarters and knocked on the door. _Please, gods, let me be wrong..._

She wasn't even sure she waited for him to call her in before she entered, and she didn't salute or anything. She just stood there, trying to tell herself the commander was tired like always, that it wasn't any different. Or maybe it was the strain because only a few days ago had been one year. One frakking year.

“Lee didn't go AWOL. He wouldn't.”

Adama gave her a sort of sad smile. “I know we both believe that, Kara.”

She found herself needing to sit down before she fell down, and she did. “What happened?”

“Two days ago, I heard from _Atlantia's_ CAG. Lee was given a week's worth of leave,” Adama said, and Kara tried not to remember that he'd offered her the same. She'd ended up drinking her way through that week and spending most of it in hack or puking her guts out, minus a few hours right here where she was now. “He never came back.”

“Sir, I know—I know things are not... Lee just wouldn't do that. As angry as he was, as messed up as we all were about Zak—that's just not Lee. For frak's sake, he just got promoted. Why would he throw that away?”

Adama grunted, but before he could answer, the hatch opened again, and Colonel Tigh came in. He gave Kara frown even as Adama waved him over. “What is it?”

“Just got word for you. An update, they say. The frak they say,” Tigh said, and Adama tensed. Kara watched as the XO held out a paper with a shaking hand. Was that from the drink or was it something else, something worse?

Adama looked over the paper, meeting Kara's eyes when he was done. “Lee's dog tags were found along with some clothing... in an irrigation ditch not far from the cemetery where Zak is buried.”

“Sir—”

“They're still doing tests on the clothes, but they believe the blood on them belongs to Lee, and it is...” Adama's voice faltered at the end.

“A significant amount,” Tigh snapped. “Significant. Frakkers. Can't even say it.”

“This isn't happening,” Kara whispered. “Not Lee. Not now. Not like this.”

“They're still looking for a body, but given the amount of blood...” Adama set the paper down. “Saul, I'm going to need you to watch the ship for a few days. I need to go down there. I won't—I need to go down there.”

Tigh nodded. “You do what you need to do, Bill.”

Kara swallowed. “I know I didn't take that leave you offered me and I frakked up that—”

“You're coming with me,” Adama told her, and Tigh seemed to fume at that, but in the end, he said nothing because Bill Adama had just lost his second son, and there were some things you just didn't say when you saw that.

* * *

“There wasn't a body.”

“That doesn't mean he isn't dead,” Helo said, passing her a bottle of ambrosia. “They made the announcement to the ship today. Seems pretty damned official. 'Captain Lee Adama, call sign Apollo,' went missing two months ago while on leave on Caprica. He was never seen or heard from again. His dog tags and bloodied clothes were found near the cemetery where his brother was buried.'”

“Gods, could they make it sound any more like Lee went off the deep end and killed himself?” Kara muttered, running her hand over her face again. “They got the commander believing it. He's accepted that Lee is gone, body or no body, and while it's killing him, I think he might even be buying into this crap they're spewing about Lee killing himself.”

“You don't think he could?”

“Lee could have, but he wouldn't have,” Kara said. She shook her head. “If he was gonna frakking quit like that, he would have done it when he lost Zak, not now. I don't know. I keep trying to wrap my head around it, Karl, and the more I do, the less it makes sense. I heard the commander talking to Atlantia's CAG when we were planetside. He said Lee didn't even want the leave, but the CAG insisted. If Lee was at some kind of breaking point, wouldn't he have wanted to get away? Or was it because he wasn't keeping busy that... No, I don't believe it. Lee wouldn't.”

“You think it's any better if someone killed the old man's son?” Helo asked. “They don't know what happened. They've got no evidence of anything except where Lee was at one point—and that's not enough. If someone murdered the old man's son and he will never know who did it—”

Kara couldn't take it. She ran from the room, knowing that she did know a murderer. She knew who killed Adama's son. It was her. She'd done it. She'd killed Zak.

* * *

“Kara.”

She looked up to see the commander above her. He radiated disappointment, and she hated herself for it, but she deserved it. She'd gotten herself here in hack on purpose. Galactica was being decommissioned today, and somehow she just knew that Lee would have been here if something hadn't gone wrong a year ago. She still couldn't bring herself to believe he was dead, but a year. A whole frakking year had gone by without any kind of word.

Everyone believed Lee was dead now.

Most of them believed he killed himself.

She shook her head. “I'm not apologizing. He said stuff that was out of line.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah, well, all I did was mention his wife. He was the one that said a screwup frakwit like me had no business being the replacement for your sons that couldn't hack it,” Kara said, wincing when she saw the look on Adama's face. “Sir, I'm sorry. I didn't—”

“It wasn't you.”

“I don't... Zak might not have been the best pilot ever, but that didn't mean he deserved to die. And Lee—I don't believe for a second that he killed himself. I don't.”

“Kara—”

“I know they found his car with a bunch of bottles, but Lee can handle his liquor. He's one of few people I know that can match me round for round. He always has,” she said. Then she dug into her pocket and took out the paper. “Here. You won't like all of it, he was still kind of pissed at you, but if you read it, you'll see the same thing I did.”

Adama frowned. “What is it?”

“Lee wrote me. Not that long before he left _Atlantia._ The frakkers screwed up the mail, so I just got it. Today, even.”

Adama took the paper, opening it up. Kara already had it memorized. She knew what it said, could quote it word for word.

_Kara_

_I think I've wasted a battlestar's entire supply of paper trying to find a way to write this. I've started and stopped so many times. I lost count. I just knew I had to write something, do something—I thought of looking you up since it will be a year in a couple days, but I don't know that I could stomach seeing Dad even if I know you need me._

_Um, frak. Fine. I'm leaving that even though I know you're rolling your eyes and saying you don't. You'd hit me if I was there, but I'm not going to ask for another sheet, so it stays._

 _I think the squad would rather I wasn't here. They're not so happy with me these days. I'm not good company. I don't know how to be. All I can think is Zak is gone, and I'm here, and there's something wrong with the worlds that I cannot figure out..._

_Then I take to the air again, and somehow I'm free there, and I don't think of Zak when I fly, which is strange because he died flying and he died because he wasn't meant to fly, but I'm here and not bothered by it when I'm in a Viper._

_I miss him. I miss you. Don't know why, because you're such a pain, but you're the one that... I can remember Zak with and it's not painful. It's not—it doesn't make me angry like it could. I could go on hating Dad forever. Maybe I will. And don't. You don't need to get in the middle of this. Don't pick sides. Any kid with divorced parents can tell you how bad that is, but then you kind of know that anyway._

_This is harder than I thought it would be, and I haven't said one useful thing in this entire letter. Oh, but I should tell you they're thinking of shifting me over to some kind of test pilot program. Ha. I know what you're saying now. Promotion's gone to my head, you're the better pilot, I don't have a big enough dipstick to do the job._

_There. I think I've got you laughing now._

_I win._

_Try and laugh some more in the next few days. You'll need it. We all do._

_Lee_

Adama lowered the page, holding it back to her. She bit her lip, thinking it was the wrong thing. She'd screwed up again.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—I just... I can't stand it when they say he wasn't good enough, that he crapped out under the pressure. That he couldn't deal with Zak's death... He wasn't suicidal. Lee wasn't. I can tell when he writes when he's upset, and he was, but not like that.”

Adama nodded. “I know.”

“For what it's worth... I don't think he would have stayed mad at you forever. I'm not even sure he was, but he coped with losing Zak by... by making a place for the guilt and the anger. And it was you, and it's not right, but Lee does the right thing, and when he realized what he was doing... He would have changed his mind.”

Adama gave her hand a squeeze over the bars. “Thank you.”

She shrugged, not sure she could take any credit for that, even if she had always held out some strange hope that Lee and his dad would fix the stuff between them, even if it meant admitting her part in what happened to Zak.

“You'll be cooling your heels here for a bit. Colonel Tigh wanted to press charges.”

“Fine,” she said. “I've got nothing better to do.”

* * *

The worlds ended.

And this time even Kara couldn't deny it.

Lee Adama was dead.

* * *

“Admiral Cain?”

“What is it?”

Fisk didn't want to approach her, didn't want to approach himself, not when he wasn't anywhere near drunk and couldn't think of how he was going to live with himself after the _Scylla,_ but he had to. He had to face her, give a report, and only then could he find a way to drown what was left of his humanity away for good, find some way not to remember what he'd done, what he'd ordered others to do. Cain could live with herself. That was clear even now.

Fisk didn't know that he could.

“After action report on the _Scylla,”_ Fisk said, handing it to her, knowing he needed it done before he could think of doing anything else.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

He hesitated.

She looked up then, and he tried not to flinch under her gaze. “Did you have something to add? Or are you thinking of questioning my order?”

“No, sir,” Fisk told her. He found himself smiling—gods, smiling after all that had happened. After that massacre. “I have good news.”

“And what would that be?”

Her tone wasn't impressed, but he had a feeling she would be, eventually. Or at least, it would take the edge off the day they'd had. “Lieutenant Birsha found something on one of the ships. Something not on the parts list or the passenger manifest.”

“Oh?”

“He wanted to call it a present for you.”

She gave a small laugh. “A present. Like this is any time to be giving gifts. Still, it might be amusing to hear what he thinks is so godsdamned important.”

Fisk turned back to the door, and it opened, allowing one of their pilots to enter, dragging a man with him. Cain tensed, and Fisk realized she thought she was getting another Cylon. Not a bad assumption with the cuffs on his wrists and the blood on him suggesting he'd fought Birsha on coming here, but Fisk wanted to see her face when she heard the truth.

“Admiral Cain, sir,” Birsha said, smiling even as his prisoner glared death at him. “May I present to you... Captain Lee Adama, call sign Apollo.”


	2. Compounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee's rocky start on _Pegasus._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got to be longer than I expected. I had wanted to get a moment in with Lee and the deck chief from _Pegasus,_ and the end doesn't do enough of what I wanted it to, but I can still include a few things in the next section.
> 
> I should add that I have recently rewatched Razor and the other episodes with Admiral Cain, but my characterizations are probably off and I know the timeline of events isn't quite right, but there is a nice thing with AU, especially handwaved ones. I don't have to use all of canon or keep it quite as aligned as I ought.

* * *

“My gods,” Cain whispered, and not for the first time in the past year, Lee wished he'd died when everyone thought he had. Shutter grinned at him, pushing him forward toward the admiral. “I thought we were doing well to find a few civilians who had pilot training and a few others who could work a deck, but you... Now you _are_ a find.”

Her words made Lee's skin crawl, though being around Shutter again was enough for that. Gods, he hated Birsha. How, at the end of this frakked up world that bastard was still alive, Lee didn't know, but he knew he was frakked the moment that door opened and Birsha set foot on the Gambit. 

“Of course, there is also the issue that you might be a Cylon,” she said, reaching for him and putting a knife up to his throat. “Since you're supposedly dead and weren't listed on any passenger manifests by the name Adama.”

“Yeah, but everyone knows that Apollo over there only _disappeared._ His body was never found, and now we know why,” Birsha said, still smiling at him. “The coward was hiding under another name until I saw him for who he was.”

“Frak you,” Lee said, tempted to lunge for him despite the knife at his throat.

“Are you a Cylon, Captain?”

“Is being a coward any different to you?” he countered. “Because if you believe I ran and hid, then it doesn't matter.”

She stepped back. “Colonel Fisk, Lieutenant Birsha, you're dismissed.”

“But sir, if he is—”

“If he's a Cylon, I'll handle him myself,” Cain said, and Lee didn't doubt her words. She turned toward him, assessing him as she did. “How did you end up on that ship?”

“The usual way.”

She backhanded him, hard, and Lee almost fell over as it added to the wounds he'd gotten trying to fight off Birsha and the marines. “Don't play games with me, Captain. I can begin by letting you serve out your term for dereliction of duty in the brig but if I decide you're a Cylon, all bets are off. I could kill you outright... Or I could give you to Thorne, and believe me when I tell you, Thorne is very creative when it comes to punishing our other Cylon. Very creative.”

Lee tried not to shudder. He could not afford a flashback now. No sign of weakness, not in front of her. “I've been tortured before.”

“Is that what happened when you disappeared?”

He swallowed, not answering the question.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Cain said, smiling grimly. She was pleased with her discovery, which made Lee sick. He had to get out of here, but he knew that wasn't an option. The whole fleet had heard about what Cain had done on the _Scylla._ Gods, and he'd helped organize those survivors. He'd helped them right to the slaughter was what he'd done. They'd gotten everyone off the sublight ships, got them to FTLs, and then they'd had to jump because the Cylons were there. Finding _Pegasus_ was supposed to be a blessing.

He'd been away from the service for more than a year, and after seeing Birsha, he shouldn't be surprised that this was the way _Pegasus_ was—Shutter should have been mustered out years ago—but he couldn't believe the colonial fleet had fallen that far.

“Can you still fly?”

“I'm human. Humans can't fly.”

She shook her head in warning. “Don't get cute with me. If you're not who Birsha thinks you are, then you're no use to me or you're a Cylon. Either way will get you a one way ticket off this ship. Is that what you want?”

He studied her. A part of him didn't want any part of this place. He already knew what the woman across from him was capable of, and he didn't like it.

“I haven't been in a Viper in over a year, and no sane doctor would clear me for flight,” he said instead, not sure why that was an answer and not something more definite. Something like _no._ Gods, he needed to say no.

“Then we'll make sure you're fit for duty, Captain. And not a minute too soon. I have a mission for you.”

“What? You... why would you pick someone you don't know and think could be a Cylon to go on any kind of mission for you?”

Her smile gave him chills. “Why indeed?”

* * *

“Admiral on deck.”

Kendra looked up from the board, uncertain how to react to Cain after the _Scylla._ She didn't know how to react to anyone, but they all fell back on routine. She'd gone to her station, to her duties. To planning a mission with Captain Taylor and Colonel Fisk, a man she still couldn't look at.

“At ease,” Cain said, and Kendra wondered if she realized that no one was ever at ease with her. “Go over the plan for me again.”

Taylor cleared his throat. “As you know, sir, we've been looking for a way to predict the path of the Cylon fleet.”

Cain nodded, not seeming bothered that Taylor was stalling for time. Kendra knew they didn't have a solid plan or even a good idea at this point. The Cylons were erratic. Random. They weren't going to be able to track them like the admiral wanted, and she had a feeling Taylor was afraid to admit that to her.

He was saved from doing so by the door opening again. Cain's lips curved toward a smile at the new arrival, and Fisk seemed pleased, too, though Taylor was still tense. Kendra took in the rank insignia on his uniform and frowned. Since when was there another captain on board? And how did one of their apparent selections from the civilians merit that rank? Most of the others were non-coms or about to enter pilot training to make up for the losses they'd suffered at the comm relay.

“Report from medical,” the captain said, holding it out to her and belatedly adding, “sir.”

“You clean up well, Apollo,” she told him, and Kendra thought he flinched. “Glad to see you haven't completely forgotten military protocol in your time away from the fleet.”

Though the first part had made him flinch, the second made him steel up, and Kendra was surprised not to hear some kind of angry backlash from him. He folded his arms behind him and met her gaze with a dangerous glare. “No, sir. Will there be anything else?”

Cain read over the report. “Since medical has cleared you, join us. Captain Taylor, Colonel Fisk, and Lieutenant Shaw were about to tell us how we will find and destroy this Cylon fleet.”

Taylor frowned. “Sir, we don't know enough to—”

“Captain Adama graduated in the top of his class in War College,” Cain said. “I'd like to hear what he thinks after he's made aware of our current situation.”

Taylor nodded, giving the other man another look but not one that seemed to improve on his opinion of him. He passed the photos over to the other captain. “These are the images we've got so far, and this is the path we've determined the Cylons to be using. As far as we can tell, they've been jumping all over the place, and we don't know why.”

“We're well past the red line,” Adama said as he flipped through the papers. “Where is their staging ground? This doesn't show them circling back to any point, and while machines might be able to go longer without sleep or food... Assuming Cylons have any needs at all, but then they'd have to. They're not invincible, just...”

“Captain?” Cain asked, her tone a warning.

Adama cleared his throat, his neck red with the knowledge that he'd spoken aloud the entire time. “Um... I think where I was going with that was that even Cylons need resources. One resource in particular.”

“Tylium,” Kendra said. “They need fuel, just like we do.”

“Theoretically,” Adama agreed. He rubbed his head. “Could be they're just hunting for fuel. Could be they're hunting something else, but it's hard to say with so little information. Not sure why they'd still be hunting after what they did to the colonies...”

“Survivors exist,” Cain reminded him. “We have struck back at them before, and we will do so again.”

He looked at her, his expression schooled impassive, but Kendra swore his eyes said she was crazy. “Sometimes survival means running.”

“Yes, I suppose you're an expert on that, aren't you?” Cain asked with derision.

He faced her. “You'd think so, wouldn't you? The truth is you have no idea what happened to me that day or how I ended up on that ship you decided to strip. Call it cowardice if you want. I don't care what you think.”

“You watch yourself, Captain,” Fisk told him. “You're already halfway to the brig, and if you don't check that attitude here and now, you'll spend the rest of your life there.”

Adama seemed almost amused by the idea. “If you insist, sir.”

Fisk started to boil over, but Cain held up a hand. She faced Adama. “I admit, you aren't what I expected based on your file or your father's reputation, but I fully intend to use you as I see fit. Since you claim to have withstood torture once, I'll spare you the usual escalation of disciplinary action and go straight to the final step. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, letting his eyes drop back to the reports.

“Good,” Cain told him. “Now tell me what you'd do to intercept the Cylons.”

“War College is theoretical exercise,” Adama said, shaking his head. “I've never planned anything more than my squad's flight formation before. I wouldn't even know where to... The only thing I can think of is to jump to similar systems and scout them ourselves, see if we can get ahead of them somehow. Not sure what good it would do, but that's about all we _can_ do.”

Cain nodded. “I agree. Taylor, make it happen. And get Apollo back in the air.”

“Sir?” Taylor asked, frowning. “We don't even know if he can fly. You want to trust this recon to him?”

“I'm told any half decent pilot can fly a raptor,” Cain said, turning to Adama. “Do you think you're below that mark? Or is it true that flying is in your blood?”

“My father always seemed to think so,” Adama answered. “Truthfully, I don't know. I was grounded for the better part of a year, and I haven't hardly looked at a cockpit since. And if I have to fly with Shutter, I can guarantee you, only one of us will make it back alive. If that.”

Taylor frowned. “You and the lieutenant have a history?”

“He's the one that dragged me on board _Pegasus,”_ Adama told him. “What do you think?”

Taylor glared at him. Cain fixed Adama with a cold look. “Are you suggesting you can't act professionally around the lieutenant? Because I've already warned you about disciplinary measures.”

“I won't work with him,” Adama answered. “And I don't care what you do to me. You put me in the air with him, and we're both as good as dead, so it doesn't matter.”

“Very well, Captain,” Cain told him. “You're dismissed.”

Adama saluted her and left. Fisk and Taylor exchanged a look. Kendra felt like they'd all forgotten she was in the room. Taylor was the one that spoke first.

“Are you sure about this, sir? He's one hell of a risk. No one knows what happened when he disappeared a year ago. At best he should be in the brig for dereliction of duty, since he clearly knows who he is and what he used to be, but he's not only free he's planning ops,” Taylor said. “I don't understand. He could even be a Cylon.”

“Admiral Negalla handpicked Adama to serve on his flagship _Atlantia._ Whether that faith was justified or he was doing it because of his father remains to be seen. As it is, he is what I said he is—my weapon to use as I see fit. If he's a Cylon...” Cain smiled. “Then we'll use him, just as we would any other weapon.”

Kendra suppressed a shudder.

* * *

“You okay?”

Kara snorted. “What part of this is okay, Helo? We're on a frakking nuclear wasteland we used to call home, you're alive but your girlfriend is a Cylon, she says she's pregnant, she stole our ride home, and we found a frakking resistance that's made of pyramid players, and did I mention I came here for a frakking relic?”

“No, actually, but since you were carting it around, I figured it out,” Helo told her. He sat down next to her. “Anders hurt you in that game? I noticed it got a little... full contact.”

Kara grimaced. “No, he didn't hurt me. I didn't even object to him getting handsy. It's just...”

“Just what?” Helo asked, nudging her with his shoulder when she didn't answer. “Come on. You can talk to me. You always have. Sometimes you talk with your fists, but that's still talking.”

She sighed. “It's stupid. Then again, _I'm_ stupid. Not only did I come back here chasing a prophecy and a relic and a frakking myth, I was just about to have a nice, fun, no strings attached fling with a guy that used to be ranked high on a list of most eligible bachelors in the colonies, and I choke.”

“Seriously? That's way too much information there—”

“Frak you,” she snarled. “I didn't mean _that._ I mean... Out of nowhere, there's this thought in my head and it won't frakking go away.”

“And?”

“Gods, Helo,” Kara muttered, putting her head in her hands. “Just how much of a screw up am I? How badly can I frak up everything?”

“That depends. What did you do?”

She groaned. “If a pyramid team can survive the end of the worlds, why couldn't Lee?”

“Tell me you didn't,” Helo said. He let out a groan of his own. “You know I love you, right? I'm your friend. Which is why I want you _not_ to have said that. I'm not trying to be mean, and gods know I don't want the guy dead, but you can't keep doing this to yourself. You spent a year denying what everyone else accepted, and it was killing you. It was killing the old man, but in part because you can't let it go. You finally did when the attack happened, and now you're going to go back on that? You can't. You have to let it go. Let him go. He's dead. Most likely he died over a year ago, but even if he didn't, he didn't survive the attack. If he had, he'd be here, right? Here with the resistance, and he's not. He's gone, Starbuck. You have to accept that.”

“I know,” she snapped. “I _know._ It's not like I don't. I did not need this. I did not frakking need this. I thought I was past this. _Frak.”_

Helo sighed, putting an arm around her shoulders. “We'll get through it.”

“We?”

He nodded. “There's a Cylon having my baby. You think you're the only one with issues?”

Kara knew it wasn't really funny, but she laughed anyway.

* * *

“You can stop staring.”

Shaw raised an eyebrow. Lee ignored her, going back to his task. He wasn't an idiot. Someone was always watching him, and it wasn't just Shutter. Marines, in rotation, and always some officer not too far away. Taylor a large part of the time, occasionally Fisk, though more often than not, he found himself under Shaw's watchful eye.

“Who says I'm staring?”

“I didn't say you were interested in me,” Lee told her, seeing her eyes narrow. “You are under orders to watch me, so it makes sense you'd be staring. You could be a little less obvious about it. Or vary the mood a little. Taylor hates me, I can see it. Fisk... I'm not sure I want to know about what he sees when he looks at me, or Cain, though I'm almost certain I do know what that is. You look at me like a specimen. Something you have to poke and prod and study until you've taken it apart and figured out all its mysteries. I don't want to be a specimen.”

“You're not a specimen.”

“Just a puzzle?” Lee asked, and Shaw fought a smile. It died quickly as she forced herself back into the person Cain expected her to be. “I think I'm missing a few pieces, so you know...”

She snorted, and he grinned at her, feeling almost like himself for the first time in longer than he could remember. “Frankly, sir. Yes.”

He smiled, reaching for a pen. He made notes on the side of the page, still not sure why Cain kept giving him assignments that belonged to Taylor or one of his squad leaders. Or Fisk, for that matter.

“For instance,” Shaw said, pulling his papers toward her. “Why do this?”

He looked at his notes. They weren't anything special. “Orders.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes not leaving him, “but why follow them? If you deserted, then why come back? Why not—”

“Take her up on her offer to kill me for refusing an order?” Lee asked. He still didn't have a good answer for that himself. He leaned back in his chair. “Why not try and get myself killed every time I go out in a Viper?”

She met his gaze and held it. Shaw was dangerous. He knew that. He knew it even without having heard that she was on the _Scylla._

“I didn't choose to desert.”

She frowned. “Are you saying someone forced you to desert?”

He shook his head. “I'm not saying anything. I'm not that stupid. The only reason Cain has let me live is because she wants to know how I ended up on that freighter. Once she knows that, all bets are off. I won't lose what little leverage I have.”

Shaw studied him. “You surprise me.”

“I said I was missing pieces. I didn't say I was stupid.”

Shaw nodded, and Lee thought maybe, just maybe, he had—not a friend, Shaw wasn't that type—but an ally on _Pegasus._

* * *

“Gods, I frakked up good.”

Helo looked at her, shaking his head. “You can't take the blame for this. You didn't know that the old man would get shot if you went after the arrow.”

“I may as well have,” she muttered. “As screwed up as I was by this whole Lee thing, by not being able to accept that he was dead—I always kind of knew... He saw me like a daughter. It was Zak. I almost married Zak, and he was ready to take me on as a daughter. Though I guess... Me being Lee's friend, too. I... I was all he had left. Of both of them. And I abandoned him.”

“He's not dead,” Helo reminded her. “He came back for you.”

“He came back for the fleet. We haven't really spoken since he showed up.” Kara shook her head. “I don't know that I'd know what to say to him anyway. It's stupid, but I can't get the idea of Lee being alive out of my head.”

“That's not really why you promised Anders you'd go back for him, is it? Because of Lee?” Helo grimaced. “Gods, Kara, that is frakked up. I don't think you can get more frakked up than that. You know you're not going to find him, and making a mission to get back a dead man—”

“Relax, Helo. Roslin already shot me down. I won't be chasing any ghosts back on Caprica.”

* * *

_“Galactica.”_

“You don't sound pleased, sir,” Kendra observed, though she wasn't a fool. The arrival of another battlestar should seem like a blessing from the gods—if it was any other battlestar. This one was still in the command of William Adama, and if he had any idea what his son had been through in his time on _Pegasus_ —Kendra thought they'd likely see a mutiny if not murder.

Again.

“This is an important day for all of us,” Cain said, putting on a smile, like she was playing for a crowd. “Find Lieutenant Birsha. Tell him to make certain Captain Adama is aware of the consequences of trying to contact anyone on _Galactica.”_

Kendra nodded, accepting her orders. She knew where the pilot would be, and she also knew she shouldn't pass along this order. Cain said that they were razors, made into weapons that were useful in war, that the human part of them was gone, and she was right about too many of the crew. Adama was different.

He was a weapon, of that there was no denying, since he flew better than most of the pilots, and he'd proved himself out of the cockpit as well, but he was still human. He hadn't shut that part off, despite Cain's threats and the punishments he'd been given for going against her.

Kendra turned, heading toward the brig instead of the pilot's quarters. She'd relay her message to Birsha. He'd get it, and the admiral would not have to know that it was delayed. It wasn't even like delaying it mattered—Adama wasn't going anywhere.

She stepped into the brig. Cain could check the logs, find out she'd been here. Kendra wasn't sure she cared, or at least not enough to stop herself. “Captain Adama.”

“Lieutenant,” he said, not looking up from his hands, at the gauze covering most of the one, once bright white but now soiled and dirty red. “I heard the alert. Does this mean—”

“She's not letting you out,” Kendra said. She faced him, knowing this had to be done. “We've found a small fleet of ships. The one leading them claims to be the _Galactica.”_

Adama tensed, looking up at her, his voice a whisper she barely heard. _“Galactica?”_

“Yes.”

He swallowed. “Who's commanding it?” 

“Your father. He not only survived the attacks but managed to gather a civilian refugee fleet as well,” Kendra told him, not missing the flinch. She felt one herself, a kick to the gut she deserved after the _Scylla._ “The admiral wants it clear that you are not to contact him.”

Adama leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. “She didn't send you to me with that message.”

Kendra nodded, though he did not see it. “Her message was for Birsha.”

Adama shuddered, pulling his hand up against his chest and struggling to control his breathing. “Figures. Gods, I should never have let her know we had a past. I just couldn't stomach the idea of flying with that frakker.”

Kendra didn't need to tell him how bad of a mistake that was. Cain didn't have the details of whatever this feud was between Adama and Birsha, but she didn't need them. Birsha was all too willing to hurt Adama, and that was all she needed to know. This wasn't the first time she'd set him against Apollo. It wouldn't be the last time, either.

“How bad?”

“Hurts, but I don't need your drugs,” Adama said. She still didn't know how he'd figured that out about her, but she never bothered denying it. “It's actually better. Even with the pain. Still could be too frakked to let me fly again, though.”

She didn't have to tell either of them what that would mean for him. Cain wouldn't have any use for a pilot that couldn't fly. 

Instead, she made things worse. “I have to give Birsha his orders.”

He nodded. He wouldn't ask her not to do it. He was, in some ways, noble, since he wasn't asking her to compromise herself for him. She didn't know if it was that admirable, or if they had all given into weakness and fear and some strange sense that let them all excuse too much in the name of survival.

“Shaw?”

She stopped, looking back at him.

“Thank you.”

“Warning you isn't a favor.” She knew it wasn't. It was a stupid thing that didn't even appease her conscience. He could do nothing to prevent what was coming, and instead he would be forced to stew here, knowing that one of the men he hated most would be here soon to hurt him all over again.

He shook his head. “No, but telling me my father is still alive... That is.”

She frowned. “I thought you hated your father.”

He gave her a small smile. “Not nearly as much as I hate Cain.”


	3. Imprisoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things escalate between _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ with certain pilots in the middle of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was able to do a slight bit with Laird to show his interactions with Lee which I think would have been more positive than some others. And I apparently have a weakness for Shaw being a friend to Lee, even if it's only in the most grudging of ways.

* * *

“Captain?”

Adama tended to be wary, and with the position he found himself in, paranoia was only prudent. He watched the door, kept his back protected against the wall, did as much to ready himself for anyone who might come into his cell. He was always on guard.

Except today, he hadn't even lifted his head when she got near his cell. Kendra leaned against the glass, not certain she saw him breathing. His head was down in the shadows, but she could tell it was swollen from here, and the arm he'd held close to himself the last time they spoke hung to the side at an awkward angle.

Frak. She'd known Birsha would go to him, and she'd known it would be bad, but she hadn't thought that he'd go far enough to kill him. Didn't that idiot have any kind of restraint? And why the frak hadn't anyone gotten Adama medical attention? Letting his hand fester was bad enough, but they couldn't actually intend to let him die. Not now. Adama was leverage, a card Cain still intended to play.

“Captain,” Kendra said, adding more force to her words, needing to reach him. She swallowed, using a word she'd seen in files and on paperwork but never heard spoken to him. “Lee.”

His head jerked up, and he stopped, leaning his other arm against the wall as he struggled to calm his breathing. “Frak, Shaw. Don't scare me like that.”

“I called your name several times.”

“You did?”

She almost rolled her eyes. His need for precision was both irritating and strangely... endearing. “I used your rank.”

“Ah, that sounds more believable,” he said, then hissed in pain, covering his stomach with his good arm. “What brings you by?”

“Have you seen medical?”

He snorted. “No. Haven't even seen Cain, and she usually makes a point of appearing at least once to be sure I got her message.”

“Cain is planning on integrating the crews.”

Adama leaned his head back against the wall. “That... is not particularly good news for me.”

Kendra couldn't argue with him. With _Galactica's_ crew on board, the chances of him being recognized increased, making it less likely that he would see medical or be allowed out of the brig. Cain would let him rot here until he died or it was time to play her hand. 

“The admiral hasn't finalized the transfers yet, and Adama hasn't given the orders to his people, so there may still be time to arrange for you to be seen by—”

“Don't bother. It wouldn't be worth it.”

She considered arguing that with him and chose not to. “Captain—”

“It's only a matter of time before Cain strips that fleet, but if she does that, she will have to go through my father. That means... she'll use me against him soon. Within days, maybe less.”

“She's interested in that fleet,” Kendra reminded him. The distraction bought him time, though she didn't know how much or if he could do anything with it, since he was confined to the brig and barely alive from all appearances. “She has another battlestar now. She will use it to get that fleet.”

“Or she'll just feed _Galactica_ to them.” Adama closed his eyes. “She still needs to recon that ship. The one the basestars are protecting.”

“Yes.” Kendra studied him. “I know you wanted a way around Taylor's plan—”

“For the last time, his idea was frakking stupid. It's got nothing to do with me bucking for Taylor's job. Cain uses that to bait him, but she's got no intention of making me CAG,” Adama muttered. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Wait. Was I delirious or did Laird actually say that the _Galactica_ had a stealth ship?”

Kendra almost laughed. “If you were capable of flying anything right now, you'd probably blow yourself up in that thing.”

“Is Lieutenant Thrace still...” Adama paused. Kendra watched him, deciding she'd send someone from medical down here. He needed it, and if Cain objected, Kendra would remind her that she needed her bargaining chip alive. “Is she still on _Galactica?”_

“She's one of the transfers. She has a history of disciplinary issues. Cain wanted her here.”

“Frak.”

“Sir?”

“Kara likes hack,” Adama said, and Kendra gave him a look. “And she was engaged to my brother. She could be blind drunk in the middle of a nuclear rainstorm taking heavy fire and she'd still recognize me.”

Kendra grimaced. Frak was right. Having Thrace on board was dangerous. “Any suggestions for keeping her out of here?”

“Find a surveillance package, send her and it after the fleet.”

Kendra stared at him. “I know you're injured and far from thinking clearly, but that's insane. You need medical attention and—”

“Shaw, get the surveillance package to Thrace and get her out there. She'll get it done. The admiral will get what she wants, and everyone stays alive. For now.”

* * *

Kara still didn't understand why Lieutenant Shaw had shown up with a secret mission for her, but she was Cain's aide, her little clone, so Kara wasn't going to question it. Cain must have wanted it, or she would never have been able to pull it off. Still, Kara wouldn't complain about taking the blackbird out for a spin. A frakking joyride, that's what it was, because she couldn't stop grinning the entire time. Even when she was right up in the middle of the Cylons, taking pictures and hoping she wouldn't get seen, she was smiling.

In spite of her transfer, in spite of the fact that the colonies were dead and the Cylons could wipe them out any day, in spite of every frakking thing that had gone wrong since the worlds ended, Kara was happy. She shouldn't be. She hadn't managed to get back to Anders and fulfill that promise, had never seen if Lee showed up somewhere in the resistance.

She could forget it all right now.

She was happy.

Until she jumped right into the middle of a frakked up showdown between _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ and almost got herself killed stopping it by using herself as bait.

Gods, this was so wrong. All of it. She'd been so happy, doing her job, flying, outsmarting the damned machines that had killed them all, and now she didn't know where she'd end up. She didn't think Cain had sent her on that mission—she wasn't sure what would make Shaw do it, but she didn't get the sense that woman liked her one bit.

Then Cain promoted her, made her CAG, and Kara wasn't sure that anything was left in the world to make sense at all. She wanted to get back to Helo or the commander, back to where she knew what was up or down and where she stood, but she had no way of balancing herself here.

She needed to get the frak off the _Pegasus_ and get her head straight, but that wasn't likely to happen. She might just have to find a fight instead.

* * *

“Mr. Laird?”

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he nodded. Commander Adama was an intimidating man. Not in the same sense as Cain. She was malice, a threat hiding just underneath a cool exterior, a warship that didn't disguise what she was in anyway, no form over function. Adama was hardened, a veteran like his ship.

“Like I said, the ships should be ready in time. I'm almost positive.”

Adama seemed amused, giving him a half-smile that reminded Laird of another man, a younger one with the same name. And the same half-smile, it would seem.

_“Careful. If you do that before disengaging that line, you're going to end up with one hell of a burn,” a voice advised, making Laird jump, almost hitting his head on the Viper. “And a nasty bump, too, from the looks of it.”_

_“Sorry.” Laird grimaced. “I mean, sorry, sir. It... I was distracted. It won't happen again.”_

_The captain shook his head. “No, it will. It'll happen a lot more than you want, every moment you think has to be the worst—that's when it'll happen. It'll come. They try to tell you you can ignore it. Compartmentalize it. Move on. Truth is... you don't.”_

_“I'm not sure what you mean,” Laird said, and then he forced himself to add, “sir.”_

_“I'd tell you not to worry about the sir, not with me, but if you don't get in the habit, it will only get worse for you, not better,” the captain said. “Pass me that wrench, will you? This line needs to be tightened.”_

_Laird handed him the tool, still frowning. “I don't understand.”_

_“The_ Scylla,” _the captain said. “I should say I don't know how you could serve her after what she's done to you, but I do.”_

 _Laird nodded. He'd seen the captain before_ Pegasus. _He'd been among those helping organize people off the sublight ships and onto the ones with FTL. He'd been taken from his ship just like Laird had, though without losing anyone in the process. “Can I ask you something?”_

_“Can't tell you how I ended up in the fleet. That's classified.”_

_Laird frowned, not sure what that was about, but he didn't ask about it. He shook his head. “I was going to ask about you and that wrench.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_Fidgeting, Laird reminded himself he was never going to fit in on a battlestar, in the military, but also that he needed to be a lot more careful about what he said. “I just meant... You're about the only pilot I've met that hasn't... That seemed willing to do his maintenance shift. The others all act like... like it's beneath them. They do it because they've been ordered to, but you just came over here and started working. You're not grumbling. You might even enjoy working on the ships.”_

_The captain gave him a bit of a smile. “I guess you can say that there's not much that's beneath me these days.”_

A loud clearing of someone's throat brought Laird back to the present, and he realized his palms were sweating. He didn't know that he could do this. He should, it was what was right, but he hadn't known what was right since that day on the _Scylla._ His family was gone, but he lived.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Laird?”

“Sir, there is something I should tell you.”

_He could hardly look at the woman in front of him, sickened by the sight of her and the memories. It was easier to function when she and Cain and Fisk were up in some room he never saw, when he had his deck and few of them crossed it, but she's standing here now, right in front of him._

_“You've been transferred to the_ Galactica.” __

_“I know,” he said, and to him, it's a relief. He didn't want to be on this ship another minute. “I head out on the next Raptor.”_

_“Good,” she said, and he wanted to rage at her but all he would do was give way to the sorrow and nightmares he knew since the_ Scylla, _so he didn't. “You'll be out of her reach. Safe. That means you'll have to be the one to do it. She won't expect it, but even when she knows, she won't be able to touch you.”_

_“I don't... What are you doing?”_

_“When you're aboard_ Galactica, _you will speak to Commander Adama,” she said, fixing him with a hard gaze. “And you_ will _tell him that Apollo is in the brig.”_

_“What? You know what she said would happen if—”_

_“You owe him,” Shaw said, her voice cold. “He took the hit for you. He took the blame and the brig time. So don't think for a second you won't tell his father where he is.”_

Laird met the commander's eyes, wishing he was anywhere but here. He wanted to go back to before the fall, when he was designing ships and dreaming of the future, one with his family. That made him feel guilty. How could he stand here, drowning in that pain and loss, and keep the commander from knowing his son was alive?

“I wasn't the only one taken off a civilian ship, sir.”

“I am aware there were others. The admiral did not give me a full list, but I know that—”

“Sir, you don't. You really don't,” Laird said, flinching as the commander looked at him with disapproval. “It's Apollo.”

“Excuse me?”

He said it about the same way his son did. Laird would have found it amusing or something else if he wasn't so nervous.

“Captain Adama. He's alive, sir. He's in the brig on the _Pegasus.”_

* * *

“Sir,” Kara said after the others had left the briefing room. “I don't see why you need me to explain the battle plan to you again. You're better at this stuff than I am, and I don't think this was me at my best. Though maybe I can blame Shaw for that. I don't know what it is about that woman, but one of these days, I'm gonna deck her.”

Adama gave her a small smile, but his expression made Kara feel sick, not amused. “I need you to do something for me before you come to _Galactica.”_

“Anything,” she agreed, wanting that look far from his face. Not that it would be easy. They'd almost gone to war over Helo and Tyrol, and they still weren't safe.

“I've been informed that Cain has another prisoner in her brig that she does not want me aware of. I'm not sure about the source. I need you to verify this report for me before I make a decision on this plan. Find the other prisoner, confirm or deny the report, and come see me.”

“Who is this other prisoner?”

“If you see him, you'll know,” Adama told her, and she nodded, letting him leave. She bit her lip, trying to get her thoughts under control as she headed toward the brig. She supposed the prisoner must be another Cylon. She'd heard that _Pegasus_ had one. That one was female, one like that Shelly Godfrey woman that had accused Dr. Baltar of treason. Kara didn't want to think about who the other one might be.

She knew of only one she thought Adama would want her to see, and that was not something she wanted to have happen again. She did not want to see Leoben, didn't want to hear him talk about streams or her past.

She wished that Adama had been more specific, though. Pegasus had more than one brig, and she wasn't sure what she was looking for. She could always claim she wanted to see Helo and the chief one last time if someone asked, but that was still awkward.

She stepped into the main holding cells, moving toward the back where two familiar faces were sitting on bunks. “Gods, this place is nicer than any hack I've ever been in.”

“And you're a bit of a connoisseur,” Helo said, “so we should take that as a compliment.”

She smiled. “Damn right you should.”

“What's going on, Captain? No one's told us anything. Not since they said that we were getting executed. It's been hours.”

“Well, I only got to see the end of it, but we came pretty close to a shooting war with Pegasus over you two. They delayed it for an op that I'm trying to get off the ground, and for some reason, the commander has me trying to track down a prisoner that's not one of you frakkers.”

“We're the only ones in this area,” Helo said. “One of the guys that came in to threaten us did ask us if we were going to be more fun than the captain because he apparently doesn't scream.”

“Frak.”

“Fisk stopped it,” Tyrol said. “We're fine. Not sure we can say the same for the captain, whoever he is, but we're good.”

“All right. I've only got a few minutes before I have to go meet Adama to go over the plan again. I've got to find this prisoner before I go, so I have to cut this short,” she said. “You idiots better be here when I get back from the mission.”

“Count on it,” Helo said, and Kara nodded before forcing herself out the door.

* * *

“You're going to be late, Captain. I believe you have a meeting with Commander Adama in less than twenty minutes,” Kendra said as she caught Captain Thrace coming out of the brig. This was dangerous. A part of her wondered if Laird had done as she'd instructed and told Adama, but if he had, the man had asked the wrong person to look into the matter. Starbuck was far from subtle.

“Yeah, well, I've got a few things to do before my flight,” Thrace said. “Did Cain send you here with additional orders for me?”

Shaw shook her head. “No, but she is not a patient woman. You should not delay any longer than you have to. And you should make sure the commander is on board with the plan. Cain will not give him another option.”

“I know. And he knows. He's not a frakking idiot.”

Shaw shrugged. “That remains to be seen.”

“You almost sound like Lee,” Kara said before she could stop herself. Then she winced. Frak, she was distracted and making stupid mistakes. She did not mention Lee. Not anymore. “That's not—I need to go.”

“You want the door to your right.”

“What?”

Kendra snorted. “You don't actually think she'd put a high priority target in an ordinary location, do you?”

Thrace frowned. “What are you playing at? I thought you were the admiral's pet stooge. Why are you helping me or anyone on the _Galactica?”_

Kendra smiled, amused. “I'm not.”

* * *

“Tell me you have a plan for dealing with that frakking bitch.”

Bill looked up at Kara in the doorway. She was shaking with a barely contained fury, and he didn't know how she'd managed to land a Raptor or get to his door in her state. That was not going to help matters. Her flying off the handle on the edge of a major operation would be difficult to handle at the best of times, but this could be worse than most.

“It's a good thing you'd already shut the hatch,” he observed, and she folded her hands over her chest, angry.

“You have a plan. Tell me you have a plan,” she repeated, still agitated.

“What is it, Kara?”

“She's got Lee,” Kara said, falling into the nearest chair. “Oh, gods, she's got Lee.”

“Starbuck,” Bill said, trying to get her to focus. He'd been both dreading and hoping for that answer since Laird told him his son was alive. He wanted to believe it because he would have given anything to see either of his boys again, though if he was honest, a bit more interested in seeing Lee because a part of him had wanted to hold out hope when there was no body and even more of him wanted that suicide story to be wrong and the rest...

The rest wanted foolish things he had never had before and would probably never have with his son. That wasn't who they were

“It's bad,” she said, choking on the words. “I... He was almost unrecognizable, and I wasn't sure he knew who I was. I didn't—I almost thought it wasn't him, that I was just making it up or dreaming because there was a part of me that never accepted that he died, not even when the worlds ended, but then he said... He told me I should go. That I had to pretend I didn't know he was there, that I couldn't tell you—because she'd kill us. All of us.”

Bill refused to wince. That wasn't any sort of surprise to any of them, not really.

She looked up at him. “Tell me we're going to deal with her. Hell, tell me to put a frakking bullet in her, but tell me she is not going to get away with this. We're going to make her pay for what she did to Lee.”


	4. Liberated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confronting Cain and the fallout that ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been reminded of why all of my stuff used to become horrifically long novel epics while trying to get this into a finished state. It's hard to stick to just the moments that are absolutely necessary, hard to know what belongs and what doesn't, and then the parts that shouldn't last take forever to get down.
> 
> The main exercise here was to have everyone find out Lee was alive on _Pegasus,_ and that is done, at least.

* * *

Cain handed the phone to her, and Kara prepared herself. She knew she actually wanted to do this, wanted Cain dead in spite of the woman's promise that they'd go back to Caprica for Anders. Still, she wasn't sure she could pull it off. She might be able to shoot, to take out the admiral, but then there would still be a lot of people who would shoot her in turn for what she did. Cain was the leader of the fleet. Kara's actions would be treason, justified or not.

She told herself she was fine with that after what she'd seen from Lee.

Gods.

_The man behind the glass looked more dead than alive, and that was just from the way he sat. Kara swallowed as she got close, telling herself that it was just a Cylon, and no matter how much Leoben frakked with her mind, she didn't care what Cain did to this one._

_She reached the glass, not seeing any sign of life in the man in front of her. Him talking was almost enough to make her jump back from the glass._

_“You may as well go, Shutter. There's not much left for you to hurt.”_

_Kara had tensed, but her hand went to the glass anyway, staring and trying to make sense of the sound of that voice. She'd always said she hadn't believed it, but now she was hearing a dead man and trying to make sense of it. “Lee?”_

_He turned, blinking a few times before he shrugged and lowered his head. “Not amused by the new tactics. If this is carrot time instead of stick, you picked the wrong person.”_

_“Lee,” Kara repeated, banging on the glass. “This isn't about a frakking carrot. This about the fact that your father thinks you're dead but his commanding officer has you locked up in some secret brig on her ship and you're a frakking mess.”_

_“She will kill him,” Lee whispered. “I know she will. Then she'll kill the others. Strip them down just like she did the_ Gambit _and the_ Scylla... _Gods, she won't even bother executing a few from one ship for show. She'll just open fire on the whole frakking lot of them.”_

_Kara shook her head. “That is not frakking happening. We won't let it happen.”_

_Lee looked up at her and frowned. “We... There is no we. I don't—”_

_“Frak that. We were friends once. I almost married your brother. There is definitely a 'we' and that 'we' is going to make sure Cain gets stopped, just as soon as we get you the frak out of here.”_

_“Kara,” he said, and that time she knew he recognized her. “You can't... You have to go. If you try and do anything here, you'll die. Dad won't have any warning. You... You have to go.”_

_“Frak that. I'm not leaving you like this.”_

_He gave her a slight smile. “I am still leverage. It's the only reason I'm still alive. She's going to use me against him. I have a few ideas about stopping that, but most of them involve removing me from the equation—”_

_“Don't frakking say that. You are not dying here.” She ran her hand through her hair, frustrated. “We'll fix this. You're not dying. You're not.”_

_“Why do you care?”_

_That was like a punch to the gut, and Kara couldn't answer it._

“Captain,” Cain said, passing her the headset, and she forced herself to take it, preparing to hear the order that she knew she needed. She had to do this. They all did. Cain was too much of a threat. She had to end it. They all did.

“Congratulations, Captain,” Adama's voice came over the line, and she smiled, still feeling a bit on edge but touched by the praise. Adama's opinion meant everything to her. “I'm very pleased with the outcome of this mission.”

She nodded, preparing herself to hear the code word he was about to use, but if he said it, it was lost in the chaos as the doors to the CIC opened and marines went on alert. Cain's expression turned into a scowl.

“Exactly what do you think you're doing here, Captain?”

“You already know the answer to that,” Lee told her, raising a gun and pointing it at her. “I came here to stop you. To end all of this.”

“The marines will kill you,” Cain said. “Even if you manage to pull that trigger and have it hit its mark, you will die before that happens.”

He shook his head. “You're missing the point, but then again, since you were always willing to take on Taylor's plans, I can see why that would be. Fortunately for me, despite everything War College pounded into me and my own unwillingness to break the rules, there was always someone around to do a lot of out of the box thinking. Zak first. Kara later. A few others mixed in along the way.”

“Lee, don't do this,” Kara began, looking at him and knowing what he was doing, the frakker. He'd said he would, that he planned on taking himself out of the equation, but not like this. Not in a blaze of futile glory, not when it wouldn't be enough. Cain would likely survive this. He wouldn't. “Your father just found out you were alive.”

Lee looked over at her. “I know, but I also knew... I wasn't about to be leverage. Not anymore. Even if it hadn't come to this, she would have been able to use me to make my father back down over every order he might question. She'd have killed him slowly. Every time he gave into her, it would destroy him. Like it did me.”

“Lee—”

“The funny thing is... I still haven't forgiven him,” Lee said, almost laughing as he said it. “I haven't. He and I never saw eye-to-eye, and I never forgave him for leaving us, for ignoring what Mom was like after he was gone, for loving Zak more than he did me and then pushing him so frakking hard he got him killed. I still hate him for _all_ of it. So the idea of doing all this to save him is so frakked up it's ridiculous, but here I am anyway.”

“You're right, Captain. This is ridiculous. Marines, take his weapon and return him to the brig. Immediately.”

Lee heard Cain's order and laughed. “It's a little late for the show, Admiral. I said I wasn't going to be leverage and—”

“Don't you dare kill yourself,” Kara told him, seeing Cain smile in a way that made her sick.

He shook his head. “Thinking outside the box is your specialty, Kara, remember? So start thinking. I knew walking in here was a suicide mission, but I did it anyway because I was there when she stripped that fleet and left them to die. And the ones she pulled off those ships weren't the lucky ones. She'll do it all again. And that can't happen.”

“Killing yourself doesn't stop that.”

“It just makes this all very tedious,” the admiral said. “I'm tempted to shoot you myself.”

“Like you did your XO?” Lee asked. “That story is true. Everyone on _Pegasus_ knows it is. People haven't stood up to you because they were afraid, because they could rationalize what you were doing as war and the cost of it, and they obeyed orders and twisted themselves, but there is an entire crew and fleet out there that didn't sacrifice honor and what was right to survive. Every frakking one of us knows that. And so does the fleet.”

“I am the one in charge of this fleet. I am the one seeing to their protection. I have to make the hard decisions. I don't expect you to understand them, but I damn well expect you to obey them,” Cain said. “Lower your weapon. Now.”

“Is that actually how you see it? That you're protecting the fleet?” Lee demanded. “You have a deck chief that walks around like a frakking ghost because you killed his family in front of him, and if he so much as slips with one of your ships, you threaten to haul him off to the brig—”

“I always knew you lied about that piss-poor repair being done by you,” Cain said. “You didn't protect anyone. If Laird couldn't handle it, he shouldn't have been there. I would have thought you'd learn your lesson, but you haven't.”

“Yeah, my hand is good and well frakked thanks to you and Thorne,” Lee agreed. He shrugged. “At least I only need one of them to pull this trigger even if I might not ever fly again. Then again... I've been there before, too. It doesn't change anything—Laird shouldn't even be there, and you had no right to do that to him.”

“I was doing what was necessary to rebuild my ship and my crew—”

“Which you wouldn't have had to do if you hadn't set them up on a suicide run against an overwhelming force. Your XO knew that was the wrong call, and you killed him for saying so. You can lie to yourself all you want, Admiral, but you're not protecting anything. You've managed to destroy most of what you claim to be saving. This ship. This crew. The humanity in them. Or do you think anyone is really fooled with your reasons for sending Fisk and those marines to _Galactica?_ You intend to murder my father. Maybe Tigh, too. Anyone who might disagree with you. So do it. Go ahead with your plan. But ask yourself... Are you actually fulfilling your oath right now?” 

“How dare you ask me about my oath?” Cain demanded. “You're a frakking deserter. You were lucky I allowed you back on my ship.”

“I didn't desert,” Lee said, tightening his grip on the trigger. “I'm sure that's what you want to believe because it allows you to feel superior. You can consider me a coward who ran when you stood firm, but what you did was more than just carrying on and keeping your ship together. You're the one that turned your back on your oath, not me.”

“Enough,” Cain barked. “Corporal, take the captain into custody. If he resists, shoot him. As for the rest of you—”

“Are you going to kill everyone in this room?” Lee asked, lowering his gun. Kara winced. She didn't want him dead, but she didn't want him to give up, either. “Is that your plan now, your way of making sure this dissension doesn't get out to the fleet?”

“Is that what you're trying to do, Apollo? Seed a mutiny?”

“Damn right I am,” he told her, leaning into her face. “And there's nothing you can do to stop it. Because everyone heard that. Not just here in this room or over on _Galactica._ This is being heard across the entire fleet. Everyone knows what you are, what you're willing to do, and what you've already done.”

“Even if it was, do you really think that little speech of yours is going to change things?” Cain shook her head. “You're one man.”

“That's all it takes,” he reminded her quietly. “And if you kill me now, you make me a martyr. That will be even harder for you to erase. Heroes can fall, idols prove false, but a martyr... Death has already proven what they were for all eternity.”

“Frak you,” Cain said. “Take him away and lock him up.”

“No, sir,” Kara said, raising her own weapon now. She wasn't the only one who did it. Half the marines had shifted their guns to her instead of Lee, and right with them was, of all people, Kendra Shaw. “You're relieved of duty, Admiral.”

“The frak I am. This is my ship.”

“It _was_ your ship,” Shaw told her. “And you can make as many of us into razors as you want, but when you take away our humanity, surviving isn't enough. There is no forgiveness for any of us, not after what we've done.”

“Shaw, don't,” Lee said, moving toward her. “This isn't the way past the _Scylla._ You don't have to die to atone for it. And killing her isn't the answer, either.”

“I frakking hate you, Adama.”

He nodded. “I know. Still, I couldn't have done this without you, so the whole fleet owes you. And that... that's your new beginning.”

* * *

“So where do we stand?” Roslin asked, and Bill grimaced. He wasn't sure there was much of a place to stand at this point. He'd been ready to kill Cain, as she had advised, but he wasn't entirely sure it was about the fleet as much as it was about his son and the fact that she'd kept him from Lee and hurt his boy.

“Cain's being moved to _Galactica_ pending trial,” Bill answered. “Though I think we may need other arrangements for her as she may have supporters here, ones she chose in case this became a possibility. I'm not sure she would have seen it as one, but she was a good tactician, that was what they all said about her.”

The president nodded. “I'm sure she was. She just didn't factor human feeling enough into her calculations. She may have been betting on your son's anger toward you keeping him from working to help you or he might not have been a threat at all in her opinion.”

Bill snorted. “She didn't know the first thing about him.”

“I take it you've been blindsided like that by him, then?”

Bill nodded. Zak's funeral was the hardest one, but certainly not the first time. “First time I saw the boys after the divorce, I thought things were fine. Zak and I had a good time together. Lee was quiet, but he seemed well enough. As I was getting ready to leave, about to get the customary hugs from both boys, Lee pulled away and told me not to bother coming back again. That I'd left and should just stay away because all I did was disappoint. He walked away and left me there. From then on, things were never the same between us. It seemed better, a few years after the divorce, but that's just the sort of time when your guard gets down and it happens all over again.”

“Oh?”

“We probably shouldn't discuss this,” Bill said, but Roslin just gave him a look.

“I'm dying, Bill. What do you have to fear in telling me?” Roslin smiled. “I'll take it to my grave. No risk in me gossiping around the fleet.”

Bill sighed. “We had a spectacular blowout when Lee told me about his plans for after school.”

“I take it they weren't the military?”

“Not by a long shot,” Bill admitted. He sighed. “It's one of the reasons that when he disappeared... I didn't look as hard as I should have. I figured... maybe he had done it. He'd finally reached that point after Zak died, and he just walked away like he wanted to when he was a kid.”

“You can't blame yourself for this.”

“Can't I? She hurt him because he's my blood,” Bill said. “How do you even begin to acknowledge that? And that's not all.”

“You're talking about the speech he made.”

“You heard him. And Kara. She wasn't the only one who thought he was willing to let himself die so she couldn't use him as leverage,” Bill said. He turned away, looking out the window of _Colonial One._ “Instead he created chaos, and I'm not sure it won't rip the _Pegasus_ apart before it's over. That crew has been through a lot, and while some of them were held by fear and by their own mistakes, others willingly embraced that regime.”

“They'll need a strong leader,” Roslin said. “Which reminds me... I believe when you control two ships, that makes you an admiral...”

* * *

“There some reason you waited to get this treated, Captain?”

Lee snorted. “You want a laundry list? Because there's no shortage of reasons.”

Cottle grunted, looking over his charts again. Lee didn't bother telling him that he didn't trust the doctors on Pegasus, or that it had taken this long to settle things down enough to where he didn't think he'd be killed on his way to the hangar bay. He wasn't sure he'd be allowed a Raptor, but Taylor had surprised him. He'd even saluted as he gave Kara a Raptor.

He would have said that had something to do with Kara being first _Galactica's_ CAG and then that of _Pegasus,_ but he didn't think Kara and Taylor got along well enough for that. And Taylor wouldn't be the first to thank Lee for getting them out from “Cain's oppression.”

Not that Lee hadn't gotten more than his fair share of death threats for it as well.

“This hand is a frakking mess,” Cottle went on. “You're lucky you still have feeling in your fingers. How many times was it broken?”

“In the last month or the last two years?” Lee countered, feeling sick. “I don't know. I lost track. Did it do enough damage this time?”

“You should be able to fly again, assuming the rest of your arm is up to it,” Cottle said. “That got broke in more than one place and again not for the first time.”

“Gods, the _Pegasus_ had an incompetent medical staff, but I'd rather deal with them than you,” Lee muttered, shifting on the bed. His ribs flared up with pain, and he laid back, closing his eyes as he tried to ride it out.

“And so far I've only known Captain Thrace and your father to be worse patients,” Cottle told him. “Sit back and stay still. At least four of your ribs are cracked. You shouldn't even be on your feet, and you should be—”

“Not breathing? I considered it. A lot. It does hurt, after all,” Lee said. He schooled himself back to where he had to be and faced the doctor again. “It was Pegasus. You didn't show a weakness there. Not unless you wanted to suffer worse.”

“You have a lot of older injuries underneath them.”

“You going to ask where I got them, too?” Lee asked. “Everyone's dying to ask me about that missing year. I think you can see why I'm not dying to give them answers about it.”

Cottle grunted. “I need information to properly treat you. I'm not interested in holding your hand and talking you through it. There are priests for that.”

“I'm an atheist,” Lee said. “And even if I wasn't, I would have been by the time I got to the _Pegasus.”_

Cottle didn't say anything to that. Lee saw the curtains shift and tensed, and then Kara pushed them back, giving Cottle the finger when he started to say something. She shook her head. “Gods, Lee. You are an idiot.”

“So Cottle just got done telling me. He and Dad deserve each other,” Lee said, putting his good hand on his stomach as the pain got bad again. “Frak. Remind me not to try and laugh.”

“That wasn't funny.”

“My sense of humor is a little warped these days,” Lee admitted. “You know... I actually thought he'd find me. How frakked up is that? I hate him, and I wasn't shy about saying it, but it's been almost a day and not a frakking word from him. Did he even care that I was gone? Did he? Because I don't think he did.”

“Gods, Lee, he was a mess when you disappeared. He went down to Caprica to hunt for you himself after your dog tags were found, but we didn't get anywhere. No one saw anything, and the civies gave up on you a couple weeks later. The fleet... well, it took a few months, but everyone came to a consensus there.”

“I deserted.”

“No, you killed yourself.”

Lee stared at her. “The frak? Okay, that makes no sense. Why would my dog tags and my clothes be anywhere but with my body if I did it myself? I didn't. I... To think I actually thought maybe someone would have found me...”

She took his good hand in hers. “He would have. I don't think he would have quit looking. Ever. Negalla came down and ordered him back in person. I think he was actually relieved when _Galactica_ was going to be decommissioned. They gave him an out. He would be retired, and he would probably have spent the rest of his life looking for you.”

“Somehow I don't believe that.”

Kara shrugged. “It may have been my fault. I never accepted you were dead. Not really, not even after the fall. I met a resistance on Caprica, and I figured... if they made it, then so did you. Because you're an Adama, and you're too stubborn to die.”

Lee grimaced. “Zak wasn't.”

She flinched. “Gods, you still go right for the throat, don't you?”

“I think I'm worse now,” he admitted. Between the missing year and what he'd done to survive the _Pegasus,_ he was. Shaw had explained the razor thing to him once and said he wasn't one of them, and he'd laughed and said she had gotten delusional in her old age. “You seem... better, oddly.”

“Yeah, well, I got the bucket, not the beast,” Kara said, not quite smiling. “Gods, Lee...”

“I'm not dead. And I've had worse.”

“When you were gone,” she whispered. She shivered. “I knew. The minute that one of the rookies said you were AWOL, I knew something was wrong, but even when your father took me down to Caprica. There was nothing I could do.”

“There is something now.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Shaw.”

“Lee, if you are asking me to protect your frak buddy—”

“Shaw and I haven't frakked, not that it's any business of yours. I just... I think she'll get hit the hardest by all this. She fought to be Cain's aide for her career, and that choice cost her even as it saved her life. She's supposed to be Cain's lapdog. Everyone says that. I know she isn't. She's a conflicted mess, and I used her.” Lee lowered his head. “I knew she felt guilty about her part in the _Scylla._ I knew the buttons to push, and I did. I pushed every frakking one of them until she helped me get out of that cell and turned on Cain. People won't understand. She's going to be caught in the middle in the worst way, and I did that to her because... she was the only way. She was an ally. A friend. And I used her. I frakked her over, that's what I did. If anything happens to her because I was able to outmaneuver Cain, I'll never forgive myself.”

Kara nodded. “Fine. I'll watch out for your friend. But only if you promise to keep your butt out of hack and this place.”

“I led a mutiny,” Lee reminded her. “Pretty sure I'm going to end up back in the brig.”

“I think your father will forgive you,” she said, and he winced. “And if he doesn't, the president will. She must have loved that speech of yours. I bet you get a medal out of this.”

“Gods. Go away, Kara. I can't believe I missed you.”

“I missed you,” she admitted, leaning down to kiss his cheek and confusing the hell out of him.

* * *

“Lee.”

Bill wanted to gather his son into his arms, but their relationship had never been like that, and he wasn't blind. Lee was battered and bruised, a mess of scars showing around the bandages, since Cottle had left off the gown with Lee's ribs bound up that way. One of his arms was in a sling, and the wrist was bandaged up enough to draw back the words Lee had spoken during his speech. Gods, his son might not fly again and all because he'd taken the fall for a deckhand that didn't belong on a deck.

Laird was a good man, a decent one. And Bill would always owe him for telling him that Lee was alive. Without knowing that, without Lee's actions and that speech he'd gotten broadcast across the fleet, who knew where they'd be. Kara could be dead because she'd gone after Cain without backup, and the fleet might still be trouble. Not that it was over now, not by a long shot, but it could have been worse. And a lot bloodier all around.

Bill noticed his son hadn't woken, so he let him continue to rest, deciding that was better than anything else he could do for Lee right now.

“I don't know what happened over the last two years, but I know one thing for sure—you made me damn proud of you the other day. Your plan, your speech... I can't say I was thrilled about everything in it, but it was one hell of a show—and one hell of a risk,” Bill told him. He reached over and combed back the loose part of Lee's hair, the little bit that had started to outgrow his military cut and as Bill remembered it, had never willingly stayed in place when he was younger, always growing faster than the rest and curling. His wife had found it amusing and endearing. Lee had hated it and started using his mother's styling products to keep it in place when he was still young.

Bill doubted there was much of that sort of thing left in the fleet. He cupped his son's cheek in his hand. “I used to wonder if I was the reason you left. Oh, Kara wouldn't accept that you'd deserted, wouldn't allow anyone to talk about the idea of suicide. I didn't want to believe it, either, but I remembered what you said about Zak and that fight we had when you said you weren't going into the fleet, weren't even going to college... And I thought maybe I'd done it. That I'd pushed you into leaving the only way you felt you could because I'd been so impossible.”

Shaking his head, he looked down at his son again. “I couldn't forgive myself for it. Not after the colonies fell. I just... I knew no matter where you'd ended up, you'd be dead after that, had to be, and it was... One way or another, it was my fault. If we'd been on speaking terms for the decommissioning...”

Bill shook his head. He didn't know why he was doing all this talking. He wasn't that sort of man. And it wasn't helping any to tell Lee this when he was asleep and wouldn't hear a word of it. “I think I'll let you get some rest.”

He gave his son's hand a squeeze and started to walk away only to hear a low, bitter laugh.

“I'm not sure I've really slept in over two years,” Lee said, and Bill turned back to look at him. “You don't have to go.”

Bill eyed him warily, trying to determine if Lee had heard all of that. “You sure you want me to? I've never been your first choice for company.”

“I'm not saying you are now,” Lee told him honestly. “I just... I'm not going to sleep, and I don't like the silence. You can stay if you want.”

Bill knew it was a gift, and he should grab hold of it with both hands. “I'm going to want to ask you to tell me what happened. And not just on Pegasus.”

Lee nodded. “It was inevitable.”

“I asked for Cain's logs,” Bill went on. “If you'd rather I—”

“I never told her,” Lee said, looking right at his father as he spoke. “She doesn't know. I... I could tell that part of the reason she kept me alive was because she didn't know, so I never told. She assumed what she wanted. That I deserted and somehow ended up in that fleet like the gods' gift to her, a fully trained pilot and later the perfect thing to use against you.”

“What really happened?” Bill asked, wondering if Lee would actually tell him and if he did, if what he was about to say would actually be the truth.

* * *

_“Apollo.”_

_Lee jerked, turning around with a frown. He would have said he was hearing things, that he must have drunk more than he thought, but he wasn't so sure he was hallucinating the four men in front of him. “Shutter? I don't...”_

_“Long time no see,” the other man said with a grin, the same irritating one he'd get right when he and his cronies would pull a prank on the “daddy's boy” and get away with it, like always. Gods, Lee hated him. He'd made the Academy hell, enough to make Lee want to drop out, though he never had. “Never thought that the great Apollo would stoop so low.”_

_Lee reached for the door handle. “Not really interested in having this conversation with you. Or any conversation. I don't even know why you're here, but I'll spare us both the—”_

_“Frak that,” Shutter said, putting a hand on the door to keep Lee from opening it. Lee let go of the door and backed away, right into Fastball. Pillar moved in on his right, and Litterbug was circling round on his left. Lee didn't like this. He knew he'd heard that one of these idiots had gotten himself killed—Handover, he thought, that was the one that was missing now—but the timing—the four of them, here, now—the odds were against it but that didn't mean he wasn't completely frakked. It wasn't good. Fastball shoved him forward as the other two grabbed his arms. He stumbled onto his knees with their help, and Shutter grabbed his head. “Don't you know better than to drink alone, Adama?”_

_Lee swallowed hard. He knew these frakkers hated him, but that was back at the Academy. Wasn't all of this years behind them? Who the frak cared about that anymore? He swallowed. “Look, just forget it. I was leaving and—”_

_Fastball's hand moved from Lee's back to his neck, grabbing the chain for his dog tags. Lee felt the chain jerk tight, cutting off his words as Lee tried to pull it free. “Well, look at this. These things say captain on them. Boys, Apollo here got a promotion.”_

_“That so?” Shutter leaned into Lee's face. “Whose ass did you kiss for that one? Was it just Daddy's, or did you have to do your CAG a few favors, too? Maybe Negalla? I could see that. Maybe they used to pass you around like a party favor, huh? All your daddy's friends in command?”_

_“Frak you,” Lee said in spite of the hold on his dog tags._

_Shutter just smiled. “And here I thought you'd have a lot more fight in you. Guess you shouldn't have started the party without us. You might have survived it then.”_

_The frak? They weren't serious. They weren't actually going to kill him. The idea was insane. He knew he was drunk, but this was just crazy. He'd wake up in a few hours and laugh at how stupid he'd been to dream this up._

_“This has been a long time coming,” Shutter said, nailing Lee hard in the stomach with his fist. “Can't believe it's happening now, but what the frak? I've been dying to get my hands on the sun god.”_


	5. Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee starts to recover, but the past is getting in the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this debate with myself in the beginning... Did I go for what happened to Lee at the outset and tell a linear story, or did I go for how he connected to _Galactica_ and what canon I was acknowledging/changing and go from there. I opted for the second option, and that may have been a mistake.
> 
> For some reason, though, I liked the idea of drawing out the telling of Lee's missing year.

* * *

“You think it was premeditated?”

Lee shrugged. “I'm still not sure. At first, no. It seemed like what Shutter said. A coincidence. Handover—Gods, I still can't remember his name—he died. Collided with a civilian ship or something. I don't remember all the details. I assumed he was buried in the same place as Zak. I... I'm not sure. If they were all there to visit his grave... then maybe it was nothing. Just... an accident of circumstance.”

“An accident.”

His father didn't sound like he believed him, and Lee wasn't sure he was wrong not to, but he still wasn't sure. “I don't know how anyone would have known I was going to get that leave. I didn't even know until the day before. It's hard to picture a conspiracy there, not when I never got the sense that my CAG hated me or anything close to it.”

The commander nodded. “But they were there.”

“Yes. At first I thought I was still drunk and I'd wake up from it after a while.”

“What changed?”

“The location.”

His father frowned. “What do you mean?”

Lee looked at his hands, wishing he could get out of here, out of this place. He didn't want to do this anymore. He'd said he'd tell his father, but he didn't think he could. He'd never managed to speak about it, not to the doctors who'd kept him alive, and not to anyone he'd worked with after he was finally able to move again.

“Leave me alone.”

“Lee—”

“No,” Lee insisted. “I'm not doing this. Go away. Frak you for thinking you have to know. You don't. Put me down as a damned deserter and be done with it. I'm not—I have nothing more to say. Sir.”

Lee turned away from his father, forcing his eyes shut and refusing to look back. He didn't care what anyone said. He wasn't going to do this. He'd been wrong to think he could. Over two years had passed, and he could barely speak about the opening gambit, let alone the whole nightmare. He was not going to do this.

He was a frakking coward.

_“Get him up,” Shutter said, and Lee felt hands on him again, yanking him up from the pavement he'd gotten too familiar with a minute ago. “Come on. Let's move.”_

_“What are we doing, Shutter? I thought we just wanted to give him a few hits and be done with it. Sure, he was asking for it all the time back in the Academy, but he's already almost out, so why even bother? He didn't even put up a fight.”_

_Shutter grunted. “That_ is _the point. Even if he's drunk, he should be fighting us a lot more. I think I know just how to make that happen. Let's see now. Row ten, plot twenty-nine. Sound about right, Apollo?”_

_Lee jerked in their hold. “Frak off. You're not doing anything to Zak's grave, you bastards.”_

_“Looks like you were right,” Pillar said with a laugh. “That certainly got a reaction from him. This should be fun.”_

His father touched his arm, and Lee jumped, almost falling off of the bed. His body screamed at him, the ribs burning with the motion and his hand starting to throb again. “Gods...”

“Damn it,” his father said, coming around the bed to help him back where he should be. “I was only going to tell you that I was leaving and we could discuss this later, when you're ready.”

Lee snorted, wanting to curl up into himself but knowing he couldn't do it because of his ribs. “That's never going to happen.”

* * *

Kara rolled her shoulders and tried to get the kinks out of her body. She'd been on watch with Shaw for too long. That woman seemed half-machine, and Kara would have joked about it if this wasn't a bad time to make any remark like that. They still didn't know all the Cylon models—didn't even know if it was true that there were only twelve—and _Pegasus_ had yet to see all of the ones that they _did_ know.

Shaw opened up her knife and looked at it again. “I turned against it. Against what I knew and what I'd been taught and the woman that kept us all alive.”

Kara shrugged. “You said it yourself. It's not enough to survive. You have to be able to live with what you've done. Sometimes... that's not so easy. Sometimes, it's the punishment you deserve. Or at least that's what I tell myself.”

Shaw looked over at her. “What did you do that was so horrible?”

_Killed my the man I loved and frakked over his entire family._ Kara shook her head. She'd never say it. Even now. She knew that Lee should hate her. What she'd done had gotten Zak killed and whatever he'd gone through was a result of it. He'd been visiting his brother's grave. That made what happened to him her fault.

Protecting Shaw from people who might want to hurt her—including herself—was a small price to pay to come close to making up for that.

“How bad was he when he finally got to medical?”

“Bad enough. His hand had to be reset, same with his arm. Four busted ribs. That's all I heard about, though, and not long after he got checked out he pulled his noble crap and tricked me into a favor,” Kara muttered. “What's it to you, anyway?”

“Adama made me realize I was still human,” Shaw answered, her voice slow, troubled by what she was saying. “That we all were.”

“That's Lee all right. He's very good at knowing the black and white of right and wrong,” Kara agreed. “He was like a poster boy for it. With the biggest damn heart on top of it. He cares about people. He really does.”

“I hate him for it.”

Kara laughed. “Me, too, sometimes. Still... It's not easier not to feel, no matter what they say.”

Shaw shook her head. “Caring too much is a weakness. And he cares too much.”

“Why are we even discussing him?”

“Because we all know none of this is over. Fisk isn't that much better than Cain, and he's not even the worst of the _Pegasus_ crew,” Shaw said. “Thorne is dead, but he was only a figurehead. A ringleader. Others participated in what was done to the Cylon. And to Adama.”

“Which others?” Kara asked. When Shaw didn't answer right away, she took hold of her arm. “If any of them are still free, they're still a threat to him and to a hell of a lot more than that. Cain might understand the part about a martyr, and she did back down rather than give him that, but I'm not so sure others would.”

Shaw nodded. “You're right. They won't.”

“Then give me a name.”

* * *

_“Looks like we're off to a good start.”_

_Lee couldn't take his eyes off the headstone. Zak's name was half-covered by blood, and his head still throbbed from where it had connected with the stone. He'd been too dizzy after he hit to move, and so the blood had trailed down where he leaned against it, pleasing his tormenters to no end. They loved it, seeing that there, and Lee couldn't stand it, but he was too weak to move, to clean it off._

_Graffiti would have been better, he thought. This sickened him, but he couldn't get up or away._

_“Just a start? Look at him, Shutter. He's pretty messed up already.”_

_“Not enough,” Shutter said, and Lee saw the glint off the knife before he felt it in his side. Shutter pulled it out and shook it out on the grass. “What do you think? Should we bury two Adamas here?”_

Lee jerked awake, needing a minute to determine where he was. He still had trouble when he woke, never sure if what he saw was real or the product of a delusion brought on by pain and memories that blurred together to make his mind as shattered as his body.

He found eyes on him and swallowed when he recognized them as his father's. “I thought you left. No, you did. You were gone when I...”

“When you fell asleep?”

Lee grimaced. “I told you. I don't sleep.”

His father nodded. “Cottle figured you'd break something and threatened to sedate you even though you were already out.”

Lee almost laughed. “The doctors on _Pegasus_ tried that. It... didn't go well.”

“You spoke.”

“I didn't. I don't. I... I had to share a bunkroom with other pilots. There's no way I did that. If I had, Pegasus would have been even more of a nightmare than it was.”

His father grunted. “Sometimes when you feel safe, you let down your guard.”

“And you think I feel safe?” Lee laughed. “I haven't felt that in a long time. Even after I got free, I wasn't safe.”

“What do you mean, after you got free? You made it sound earlier like they left you there after they hurt you.”

Lee shook his head. “That... That was only the opening salvo, Dad. It wasn't even the first battle. They didn't even really start until they'd dragged me over to Zak's grave and—Frak. I did not just say that.”

“They... assaulted you... on your brother's grave?” Adama asked, forcing the words out with barely controlled rage. “Those men... They hurt you _on his grave?”_

Lee touched the scar on his forehead. He almost admitted it was from hitting that stone, but he couldn't. Even now, that was one of the harder parts to remember. “Yes.”

“Are they all dead?”

“What?”

“Did they die in the attacks, Lee? Or are those frakkers in my fleet?”

“I...” Lee swallowed. He wouldn't protect any of them, no, but he knew giving his father those names was dangerous. Even if he already knew two of them were dead and had been for a while, the third was unknown and the last one... Well, Lee knew exactly where that frakker was. “I'd have to check the passenger manifests.”

“I'll get them to you.”

“Dad—”

“I need to know,” his father said, voice firm and cold. “I need to know that they will never harm you again. The president will say that they can't be held accountable for the things they did before the end of the world, and it's true, but I have to know. I can't—You were a part of the fleet. I knew accidents could happen, as they did with Zak. What happened to you wasn't an accident. It was done with deliberate malice, and it took my son from me—again. I lost Zak. Those men made me believe I'd lost you.”

Lee let out a breath. “I'm not sure you didn't. I'm... not who I was.”

* * *

_“Wait a minute, Shutter. You never said anything about killing him,” Pillar said. “I didn't agree to that. Knock him around a little, take him off the frakking pedestal everyone has him on, sure, but murder? Frak, no.”_

_“You think that hitting me a few times makes you anything?” Lee snorted, curling back up against Zak's headstone and shuddering. “You're not even schoolyard bullies, that's how pathetic you are. Just walk away. I was drunk before. Maybe I'll even forget and think I did this all to myself.”_

_“He's right,” Fastball said. “We can go.”_

_“He's right about one part of it,” Shutter said. “If all we do is knock him around a little, it doesn't do anything to change all that we hate about him. He'll still be a golden boy. Hell, they'll make him the poor sad little victim in all this if we stop now. No, what we need is something that will make them doubt him...”_

_Lee shook his head. “Just leave me alone. You got what you wanted.”_

_“No, Apollo, I haven't. Not by a long shot,” Shutter said, moving toward him again._

Lee rolled to the side of the bed, losing his stomach before he could stop himself. He heard the clang of a metal pan and realized someone had made sure he threw up in a bed pan instead of all over the floor. Looking up, he saw Kara standing there, grimacing.

“Don't get used to that. I just didn't want it on my shoes and I knew that look,” she said, because she did. She'd been there when he was drunk before, and he had puked on her shoes more than once.

“Did you need something?”

Kara put the bedpan out of sight and range. “I'm not going to babysit your friend forever. And she doesn't need it, by the way.”

“I didn't ask because I thought she couldn't protect herself,” Lee said. “I asked because you needed a purpose and I needed not to be crowded in this room.”

“You're a frakking bastard.”

He smiled at her. “Did I tell you I missed you?”

“You did, but it's still nice to hear,” she told him, smiling back. She stopped, though, looking down at him. “Lee, where is Shutter?”

He frowned. “What do you mean? I haven't seen that frakker since—how do you even know about him?”

“How do you think?” Kara countered. “Not that Shaw wanted to tell me, but even she couldn't deny that someone like him might not care about the protection you bought by setting yourself up for martyrdom.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Lee agreed. Shutter would just see it as more of a challenge, something to overcome just like before. “Why would you think I know where he is? I was in the brig. I didn't have any control over where he went.”

“He's gone.”

Lee's throat was almost too dry for him to speak. “Gone?”

“Gone. No one's seen him since before the battle for the resurrection ship,” Kara said. “It was chaos after the battle, but he wasn't on any of the casualty lists. He wasn't transferred. He's just... gone.”

Lee looked at her. While a part of him would have been glad to have put a bullet in Shutter before threatening Cain, he hadn't. He was going to have to live with knowing that Shutter was out there and could potentially get to him at any time.

“I don't know where he is, Kara.”

“Frak.”


	6. Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee learns something startling about his missing year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there. I think I found a way to conclude this before it became an unfinished epic that didn't get touched as quite a few others are.
> 
> It's missing a few things, but they didn't fit in anywhere, so maybe they can be written later, though it really isn't important to put in all the gory details. This should be enough.

* * *

“I've asked you all here today for one simple reason,” Roslin said as she looked around the room, meeting the eyes of each officer in turn. “This war has asked things of us that we did not think we were capable of doing and even things that we should, perhaps, not have done. There is no escaping the fact that our actions have consequences, ones we do not always see when we are in the moment. Right now we are not in the moment. We are in aftermath or perhaps the calm before the storm. Either way, we are all aware that we are on thin ice here, are we not?”

Nods of assent came, but slowly. She grimaced. This was a difficult room, but then she had known it would be. She had the top ranking officers from _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ in the same place, and the tension wasn't enough for one freighter to contain.

“I want us all to be on the same page,” Laura went on. “In military matters, I defer to Admiral Adama, but I want us all to be clear on why we're here and what we expect to achieve. We are here to see to the survival of the human race. That is not a burden to carry lightly.”

“Sir, if I may,” a voice began, interrupting her and pointedly not looking at his father, who was trying to glare him into silence. “I'm not sure why I'm here. Commander Fisk, the admiral, Colonel Tigh, Captain Taylor, Captain Thrace, even Captain Shaw, but me? I'm not even a squad leader.”

“Captain Apollo,” she said, liking that name even as he clearly didn't, “I believe we have you to thank for the fact that our fleet is still alive—indeed that Admiral Cain is still alive. Things could have been much different.”

“That doesn't make me a leader, and from what I can see, you're trying to unite us all under one banner. I've got no place under it.”

She couldn't help the smile. “Are you so certain of that? Or did you not just divert the tension in the room from me and onto you all while interrupting a speech I can tell your colleagues did not want to hear another second of?”

He looked a little red. “It was a good speech, sir. Just... too long.”

She laughed. “I will remember that for the next time.”

He nodded, lowering his head. His father cleared his throat, but the younger Adama did not look at him as the admiral spoke.

“We cannot afford to be two ships at each other's throats again,” the admiral said, looking at each of them in turn just as she had done. His eyes lingered on his son, perhaps hoping that the captain would acknowledge his words, but Apollo did not look up. “Changes have to be made. Cain said she would respect my command, but she transferred my officers anyway. She was not entirely wrong to do so. As much as I do not want to alter what was working, integrating the two crews makes another shooting war less likely.”

“People will resent it,” Apollo said, lifting his face. “Some will take being on _Galactica_ as a slight and vice versa. Some will believe you should make _Pegasus_ your flagship. And Captain Taylor, while he should be on your flagship as the CAG, will probably see it as a step down from being on _Pegasus.”_

Adama looked over at Captain Taylor, who stood at attention, and that was all the answer anyone needed. “And how do you feel about it?”

Apollo snorted. “I'd take the transfer, sir, if it was even remotely an option.”

Adama blinked. “You would?”

His son nodded. “It's not that surprising, is it? You and I don't get along, never have, which is another reason it wouldn't work, but my time on the _Pegasus_ was frakked up and I don't care to go back. Still, it's where I have to be.”

“Is it?” Laura asked, looking around the table. “As I understand it, what you did... how do they say it, exactly? You painted a bullseye on your back, made yourself a target. There will still be plenty of people on the _Pegasus_ that wish you harm.”

He shrugged. “I'm not the only one. I am at a slight disadvantage right now with this arm, but it should improve.”

“The frak you're staying on the _Pegasus,”_ Thrace finally said. “Lee, they're going to knife you in your sleep. I know you say you don't sleep and sure, Shutter disappeared, but that doesn't make you safe. You have to stay where people can keep an eye on you.”

Apollo looked at her, but whatever he might have said in response was cut off by the admiral.

“We need to start working together,” Adama said. “Individual transfers are not our main concern. We are here because we need everyone working together, not just for one operation but for every day. Every minute of our fight for survival. I want to begin with the obvious. Our true enemy. The Cylons.”

“You have a plan for dealing with them, sir?” Fisk asked, watching Adama. “We were waging guerrilla war under Cain.”

“A strategy that works for a lone ship, not a fleet. We need a viable option for both ships and the civilians,” Adama said as he studied his officers. “I understand the need to fight. I won't deny anyone the opportunity.”

“Sir, if I may,” Thrace began, “I have a suggestion.”

“We can discuss a return to Caprica after I'm certain we won't kill each other in the days to come,” Adama told her, and Roslin nodded. She agreed with the need to keep the fleet together, to find a level ground with _Pegasus_ before they risked more lives. “For now, let's start with the basics. I want to be sure all of the _Pegasus_ crew is aware of all the Cylon models we've identified. We're told there are twelve. We cannot be certain that is true.”

He spread the pictures out on the table. Only Shaw and Apollo moved to pick them up. When Apollo fingered the one of the Cylon they'd airlocked, he paled. Thrace moved over to him.

“Leoben's a piece of work,” she said. “Really knows how to frak with your head. He did it to your dad. And to me.”

Apollo shuddered. Shaw saw it and took the picture from his hands.

“Frak,” Shaw whispered as she studied the picture. She covered part of it with her hand before nodding in conviction. “Birsha.”

“You've got to be frakking kidding me,” Thrace said. “Shutter is a Cylon?”

Laura tensed. Another one. In the fleet. Gods. “Who is this person? This... Shutter?”

“A Viper pilot that's gone AWOL,” Fisk answered. “He was the one that found Captain Adama in the civilian fleet and brought him on _Pegasus.”_

“Well, frak,” Tigh said. “Guess we know why he's missing.”

Fisk turned to him with a frown. “Cain had files on the skinjobs. She knew about this one. This Leoben. If another member of her crew turned out to be a Cylon—”

“The hair is different,” Shaw said. “His is darker. And he's got scars that make the resemblance less obvious, but it's him.”

“Why would Cain let him free?”

Shaw gave Fisk a contemptuous glare before facing the admiral. “Birsha was Cain's weapon of choice when certain members of the crew—Captain Adama primarily—were in need of... physical discipline. He was, in some ways, another Lieutenant Thorne.”

Laura winced. “My gods.”

Apollo gripped the table, his hands white with tension. “The only thing Cain seemed to hate more than me was the Cylons. She didn't know. Maybe her obsession with the resurrection ship blinded her, but she wouldn't have let a Cylon walk free.”

“The scarring is extensive.”

“I know,” Apollo said, not looking at Shaw. “I gave at least half of them to him.”

Thrace frowned. “The frak, Lee? I know you two hated each other back at the Academy, but that doesn't explain this.”

“It's more than an academy rivalry,” Adama said with conviction, his eyes not leaving his son. “He was there, wasn't he, son? He was one of the men who attacked you at the cemetery.”

Apollo gave a short nod. “He was.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand,” Laura said, watching the two men carefully. “What is this about?”

“It's about Lee's disappearance—”

“Disappearance my ass. He's a frakking deserter, and if Cain hadn't needed to use him against you, he'd have been executed months ago,” Taylor said with surprising venom. Adama glared at him, and Apollo shoved away from the table.

“For the last time, I didn't frakking desert,” Apollo snapped.

“Oh, yeah? And just how did you end up on a civilian transport under a fake name when you should have been fighting and dying for the colonies like you said you would in your oath? You walked away from your family and your duty, and it sickened me to have you under my command, using the name Apollo as a frakking call sign. You don't deserve the name of a god.”

“Are you going to say I _deserved_ to be tortured by the frakking Cylons?” Apollo demanded. “That man—that _thing_ —made my life a frakking nightmare for almost two years.”

“What are you saying?” Tigh asked. “Did you know he was a Cylon?”

“No,” Apollo answered. “I didn't. But... he wasn't the only one.”

“Lee?”

Apollo reached for another picture, the sketch done based on the description Thrace had provided of the Cylon “doctor” she'd met on Caprica. “That's Pillar.”

* * *

_“Apollo?”_

_Lee didn't answer. He wasn't in the mood to move or talk. Pillar was weird that way, unlike the rest of them. He always wanted to talk. Lee didn't understand why. It was like... Pillar used that supposedly friendliness to justify what he was doing._

_He shouldn't be angry. He was lucky. Pillar was the one who got the planet based assignment, meaning Lee wasn't going weeks without food again, but that didn't make this any easier._

_“Here,” Pillar said, passing the plate to him. “Dinner. Gotta keep your strength up, keep you in fighting shape.”_

_“Why the frak do I want to be in shape?” Lee demanded. He leaned his head back against the wall, pulling on the bonds again. “Why are you even doing this? You said you didn't want to kill me. That it was taking it too far. What do you call this? How far is too far for you?”_

_“Apollo,” Pillar said, sounding disappointed. Lee winced. He knew that tone. He knew that feeling—Gods, not the drugs again. “You need your rest.”_

_“Don't make me hallucinate again, you frakker. No. Don't...”_

A hand on his shoulder made Lee jerk back to awareness, and he could only groan when he realized that everyone was watching him. All of the command crew and the president. He had just made a fool of himself in front of everyone. This was frakking ridiculous.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Captain, you have nothing to apologize for,” Roslin told him, putting a hand on his arm. “No one is blaming you for being a victim of the Cylons as we _all_ are.”

“Respectfully, sir, you don't know what happened.”

“I know part of it,” his father said, trying to be gentle which felt so wrong coming from him, “You are going to have to give us more, though. Not all of the details, not here, but enough for us to understand what happened to you and why you may have been targeted by the Cylons.”

“I have no idea,” Lee almost spat. “I didn't know they were Cylons. It never made sense to me that they'd go that far for an academy rivalry, but I also don't know why I'd be that important to the Cylons, either.”

“We need more information on what they did to you if we're going to answer that question,” Roslin said. “What can you tell us?”

Lee shrugged. “Not much.”

“Lee,” his father's tone was a warning. “You have to do better than that.”

“And say, _what,_ exactly?” Lee demanded. “I don't _have_ any answers to give you. I don't know how they knew to confront me that day. I don't know if things would have been different if I hadn't been drunk. That and the concussion I got when they knocked me into Zak's headstone made me lose a lot of the first part. I'm not even sure... I don't have any memory of what happened between when Shutter finished offering me up as some kind of twisted sacrifice on Zak's grave and when I woke up somewhere else in the dark.”

His father was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that Lee knew to be dangerous. He swallowed, trying to find words that can fix what he just said, but he couldn't find any.

“Gods, that is so frakked up,” Kara said, derailing the whole moment. He looked at her, and something in her face made him pause, uncertain how to react. “Lee, I...”

“Don't. I'm fine. It's over. It...”

“How long were you in their custody?” Roslin asked, and Lee shook his head. He honestly didn't know. Time had no meaning in that world. “Captain, I know this is difficult, but we do need to know more. How long were you held by the Cylons?”

“For all I know, two of them were human,” Lee said. “They're not in those pictures. They could still have been Cylons, but none of them _acted_ like Cylons. Well... Pillar, maybe. You said he pretended to be a doctor. Pillar would... he'd patch me up after the others were done. And he gave me drugs more than once. He was... Gods, I thought he was the most human of them, that he might actually be a decent person if he wasn't under Shutter's influence...”

“He was probably frakking studying you,” Kara said. “Just be glad you weren't a woman. They'd have tried to knock you up.”

Lee gagged, trying not to throw up in front of an audience. “I need to go.”

* * *

“I think we may have pushed your son too far in front of everyone,” Roslin began, giving Bill a smile that seemed like an apology. “I did not want to do it, but as tensions are still high and your son, while a very commanding presence and disarming young man, is clouded with suspicion.”

“Tigh went to you with the suggestion that Lee was a Cylon, didn't he?” Bill asked, watching her eyes widen. “I figured he would. For all his faults, Saul Tigh is still a soldier. He hasn't forgotten his duty. He thought that I wasn't giving the idea any consideration because I was too damned happy to have my son back to think straight. That my judgment was clouded by emotions. Maybe it is. Still, Lee and I never had an easy relationship. That hasn't changed. He didn't come back trying to be in my good graces. He didn't open up to me like we aren't what we are. He fought every step of the way which is not only like my son, it... It makes me pretty damn convinced that he's traumatized by it and once again, I have no idea how to reach my son.”

Roslin laughed. “I don't know. I think you did rather well in there with him, all things considered. I just wish the circumstances were different. I would like to know your son.”

“Have I told enough tall-tales to make you curious or is it the mutiny that intrigues you?”

“I assure you it's not because he's a very attractive young man.”

Bill stared at her. “Excuse me?”

She laughed. “Oh, Bill. Don't upset yourself, though I do believe I would not be the only woman to remark upon your son's appearance. I imagine you were not unlike him in your younger days. Still, it isn't that I am indulging in some unrealistic fantasy of what your son is like, nor do I think he is going to lead another mutiny. I do find his ability to foster one under the conditions he was in on _Pegasus_ impressive, but I am... I have this sense that if things had been different, if your son had not been taken from you as he was, that he would have had a part to play in what has already happened as he still has one in what is to come.”

“You think the Cylons did this to him on purpose.”

Roslin nodded. “I'm afraid I do. And I'm also afraid that whatever it was they sought to achieve, they are not finished with him. If they were, the Cylon pretending to be Lieutenant Birsha would have left him to die with _Pegasus'_ civilian fleet. Or killed him years ago.”

Bill grimaced. “We have no idea what the Cylons wanted with him or if he...”

Roslin put a hand on his arm. “For what it is worth, I do not believe your son gave in to the Cylons. He is not a collaborator. He hates them and he fears them, and those emotions did not seem at all insincere. He is, as you said, visibly traumatized.”

Bill nodded. “We have to get more from him, but I don't think he'll be willing to talk to me right now. I don't think he'll talk to you, either.”

“I agree. I suggest you let Captain Thrace try.”

“Starbuck? She's more of a doer than a talker.”

“Maybe, but she obviously cares about your son's well-being, and since someone else has to try, let her be the one to do it.”

* * *

_“It isn't enough.”_

_Lee heard Shutter's voice, and he tensed up, trying to get free of the chains holding him to the wall. He hated this. He didn't understand. He'd cycled close to death from dehydration enough to have some sense of time passing, and he didn't understand. If the idea was to make him fall from grace with an AWOL charge, they were well past it. He was out of leave by more than a month by his calculations._

_Why hadn't they let him go?_

_“Why are you still a threat to what has to come?” Shutter asked, sounding strange. “I can see the streams. I see what has to be done. You have to live, but if you live, you alter the path, and you cannot be allowed to do that.”_

_“Frak off.”_

_“I need a way to keep you from destroying the path.”_

_“What the frak are you on about? Did you take some of Pillar's drugs? Those things just frak with your head,” Lee said. “Don't. Just let me go.”_

_“No, Apollo. We are not done,” Shutter said, and Lee yanked on the bonds again. “We have so much left to do.”_

_“Get off of me. Get the frak away from me. Get off. Gods, please...”_

_“How amusing. You are supposed to be a god, yet you call for them... and you say you don't believe in them,” Shutter said, grabbing hold of the back of Lee's neck. “Do you gain faith with your fear?”_

_“You believe,” Lee whispered. “You always hated that I was called Apollo because it was like blasphemy, right? If you believe... then you'll stop doing this.”_

_“Oh, no, Apollo. This is what my faith demands.”_

Something shook him, hard, and Lee found himself looking up at Kara. He forced himself out of the memory, trying to calm himself down. That last one seemed almost new. Not that he doubted it had happened, it was just that other memories rose up more often, replaying their horrors, and that one was almost tame in comparison to what they'd done to him at the cemetery. Or his first few days of captivity.

“Gods, you are frakking mess, Lee.”

He nodded. “I am. Thank you for pointing out the obvious.”

She shrugged. “Everyone has a skill. Though most people wouldn't have considered that one mine. Not by a long shot.”

“Well, I know what you would claim was your skill,” he began, nudging her with his good arm, “but you're wrong. You don't fly that well.”

“Frak you,” she said, and then she started laughing so hard she almost fell on her shoulder. “Damn. I missed this. What is it about us insulting each other that makes it feel like home?”

“We're emotional frakwits that can't deal with people any other way.”

She gave him a wide eyed look. “Well, listen to you getting all psychological. Where'd you pick up that idea?”

“I had a lot of time to think when they weren't around to torture me. It... Let's just say I reached some interesting conclusions over those months. I swear I was getting close to figuring out the answer to life and the universe.”

She didn't laugh like she was supposed to. “I don't understand how the frak this happened.”

He shrugged, then regretted it. “I stopped trying to make sense of it. It's more complicated now, knowing that two of them were Cylons. I'm not even sure they were sleeper agents. I still... Why me? I remember Shutter saying if I was alive, I screwed something up, but he didn't say what that was and he did say I had to be alive, but it doesn't even make sense.”

“Well, that's the Leoben model for you,” she said. She shrugged. “He said I had a destiny. Sharon said it, too. I'm special.”

Lee tensed. The idea that had just came into his head was crazy. Wrong. Impossible. Shutter hadn't actually done all of that to him to keep him from frakking up Kara's destiny, had he? Gods, that made Lee feel sick. “Sounds like he had a crush on you.”

“Don't make me hit you. You're already hurting.”

He snorted. “Since when are you refusing to take advantage of one of my weaknesses? That's not how it works with us. You remember that time you stole my—”

“Don't,” she said, covering his mouth. He stared at her, surprised by the way this conversation had shifted. “I don't want to play games. I want you to know... that when they told me you were gone, I... it frakked me up good.”

“Kara—”

“I swear at times it felt worse than losing Zak even though I never could accept that you were dead,” she told him. “And that _is_ frakked up.”

“I used to... There were times I had myself convinced that one of those days when the door opened, it would be you. Not one of them, but you. Starbuck charging in with full glory, pulling me out of there with some biting comment about how big of an idiot I was to get into that mess in the first place.”

“I never did, though,” she said, voice quiet and troubled. “How did you get out?”

“You don't want to know.”

“Frak that, Lee. Not only did I ask, I know there's not a thing you could say that would make me think less of you, so just say it.”

“Not a thing? And if I told you that part of Shutter's sick 'sacrifice' at Zak's grave—”

“Doesn't matter,” she insisted. “And you having to kill them to get free doesn't make you any less, either.”

He looked down at his hands. “How did you know?”

“You didn't want to tell me,” she answered. “It was kind of obvious. And it's obvious that it frakked you over even if they were torturing you.”

He sighed. “It shouldn't bother me, knowing what I do now. Pillar was a frakking Cylon. I shouldn't even care, but he... He did seem kinder than the others. Well, almost. Litterbug was never there, not really, and he only made a token effort at hurting me. Fastball was... I don't know. Shutter was always the worst.”

“But you killed Pillar.”

Lee nodded. He closed his eyes. “I figured they were leaving me alone because none of them had leave. Eventually, one of them managed to get transferred near where I was—I'm still not sure where it was—and he took over watching me.”

“Pillar.”

“Yeah. He got to be... predictable. I used that against him.”

“And got out?”

“No.” Lee tried not to shudder. “I couldn't get the door open even after he was dead. Got stuck with his body until Litterbug showed up. Killed him, dragged myself out, had no idea where I was... Someone found me, I think, and got me to a hospital. They said I got sick, feverish, and was out of it for weeks, couldn't tell them who I was or how I'd gotten there.”

“And after you could? Why not tell them? Get them to call the police if not your father?”

“I'd killed two officers in the colonial fleet after being tortured. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was so sure no one would listen to me. I... I ended up on a freighter bound for Tauron, thinking I'd go see my grandfather and get a legal defense—”

“Your grandfather is dead, though. He died before Zak did.”

“I know. I remembered that halfway to Tauron,” Lee said. He shook his head. “It was too late by then. I figured I'd fix things as soon as I got to Tauron, but.. the attacks came and I ended up in the middle of a bunch of refugees. It was okay. I wasn't ready to go back to anything.”

“And then _Pegasus_ found your fleet and Shutter found you.”

“Yeah.”

“And he's still out there. In the fleet,” Kara said, shivering. “Lee, we have to find him. He is not frakking touching you again. Not ever.”

“And if he goes after you?”

“He's not getting near _either_ of us,” she insisted. “I mean that. He won't. He's not going to hurt us again. Ever. You're not alone. You won't ever be again.”

He ignored his ribs and gave into the urge—the need—to hold onto her. Wrapping his arms around her, he could almost believe in illusions like safety and home.


End file.
